Badgers

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

Ecology and conservation status

Badgers (Meles meles) live in small ‘social groups’, each group having its own territory with boundaries marked by regularly spaced latrines. The group shares an underground home, the main sett, but there may also be smaller ‘outlier’ setts within the territory. They generally build their setts on sloping ground, but 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

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 species will be adequately protected during the development process, that disturbance will be kept to a minimum and, if necessary, that an adequate alternative habitat will be provided to sustain at least the existing population.

Licences and 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 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 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 sett will be damaged or destroyed; or

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

Surveying for badgers focuses on signs of badger presence as well as direct observation of badgers and their cubs.

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 sett be carefully excavated.
If a main 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.