WOODCHESTER PARK
BADGER RESEARCH

Eurasian badger (Meles meles) ecology: BADGER CONSERVATION IN THE UK

The historical status of the badger in Britain is difficult to accurately determine since there is little reliable information on the subject. However, it is probable that the badger suffered intense persecution from gamekeepers during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Various reports have concluded that at this time badgers were a rare sight or even endangered. However, increasing tolerance of badgers from landowners, farmers, gamekeepers and the public allowed the population to steadily increase during the middle years of the 20th century. Nevertheless, a new set of threats had appeared by the 1960s; increasing numbers of road traffic accidents, purposeful and accidental pesticide poisoning and illegal persecution by cyanide gassing and digging led to a decline in badger numbers, although there was regional variation in this pattern.

Benefiting from mans waste. © John Davis		Badger caught in car headlights. © John Davis

The implementation of legislation protecting the badger, notably the Badgers Act 1973, allowed the population to increase again towards the end of the 20th century. This was consolidated by further legislation and today the main legal protection comes in the form of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. Under this act it is an offence to wilfully kill, injure or take a badger. It also outlaws many other activities, which involve contact with badgers or their setts. The Act provides powers to sentence offenders for up to six months imprisonment or face a heavy fine. However, licences can be granted under the Act to permit interference with badgers for reasons that include: road and housing development, forestry and agricultural operations and badger culling by DEFRA in relation to TB in cattle.

Broadly speaking the British badger population is probably as numerous today as it has been in recent times. The last National Badger Survey (carried out in 1997) put the estimated number of badger social groups in the country at around 50,000 and the number of individual animals at about 300,000. However, human activities may still impact on badger populations. One of the most important causes of mortality is road traffic accidents, which have accounted for 25-30% of adult mortality in the Woodchester Park badger population. Also, illegal activities such as snaring, poisoning, 'lamping' (i.e. locating badgers at night with a spotlight and shooting or setting dogs on them) and badger baiting still go on and may be significant causes of mortality in some areas. Loss of habitat through development may also be a locally important threat to badger populations. Since the mid 1970s DEFRA has carried out a variety of badger culling strategies in an attempt to reduce levels of bovine TB in cattle. These exercises may have caused temporary local reductions in abundance but it is widely believed that they have had no long-term impact on numbers, although there is some evidence that they may have influenced social organisation.

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