• Badger Surveys

Badger Surveys

Thomson Ecology is experienced in badger surveys and badger mitigation. We can help to positively resolve any development issue involving badgers.

Badger Ecology and conservation status

Badgers (Meles meles) live in small ‘social groups’, each badger group having its own territory with boundaries marked by regularly spaced latrines. The badger group shares an underground home, the main badger sett, but there may also be smaller ‘outlier’ setts within the territory. Badgers generally build their setts on sloping ground, but they can also be found in less obvious places such as the edges of arable fields, in disused pipes and even under motorway bridges.
Badgers are widespread throughout the British Isles

Badger Protection and Legislation

Under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, it is illegal to kill, injure or take a badger or to interfere with their setts. They are afforded protection in order to prevent badger baiting and other blood sports involving badgers rather than to conserve badger populations.
The presence of badgers on a development site can lead to planning permission being refused unless you can demonstrate that the badgers will be adequately protected during the development process, that disturbance will be kept to a minimum and, if necessary, that an adequate alternative badger habitat will be provided to sustain at least the existing population.

Badger licences and badger surveys

Guidance on activities considered likely to disturb badgers has recently changed. Natural England now considers many activities around badger setts to be unlikely to disturb badgers and such activities will therefore not require a licence. Examples of such activities given by Natural England include vegetation clearance and development activities, using hand tools or machinery, where the badger sett will not be damaged and the noise/ vibration levels will not exceed levels commonly tolerated by badgers.

Only badger setts that are currently in use are covered by wildlife legislation. The guidance for 'current use' is that the badger sett does not have to be occupied but can be considered to be in current use if there are signs of badger presence eg, footprints, bedding, at the entrance to the sett.

Licences for badgers are therefore only likely to be required when:

-works will occur at or near a badger sett showing clear signs of current use; and

-the badger sett will be damaged or destroyed; or

-there will be fairly extreme noise or ground disturbance in proximity to the badger sett.

Badger surveys focus on signs of badger presence as well as direct observation of badgers and their cubs.

Badger Mitigation

Ideally badger setts and foraging habitat should be retained within a development site but if they cannot, then the badgers must be excluded (under licence) to protect them from harm. The process may take up to three weeks and, only once the licence holder is confident that all the badgers have departed, can the badger sett be carefully excavated.
If a main badger sett needs to be demolished, an artificial badger sett (as close to the original one as possible) can be created but foraging habitat must also be retained or created. Fencing and tunnels can also be installed if new or existing roads pose a danger to the badgers.
Translocation of badgers to a new site is not usually feasible as badgers are territorial and occur in high densities in all areas of suitable habitat.

Badger survey and mitigation timings

For more information or assistance with your project, call us on 01483 466000.