ABOUT OUR BADGER GROUP

The Herts & Middlesex Badger Group is a voluntary organisation dedicated to all aspects of badger in the two counties. This includes recording of badger setts, rescue and rehabilitation, liaison with official bodies and education. We run a lively programme of meetings and attend many public events throuout the year.

Although badgers have no natural enemies in Britain, before 1973 they were subjected to a range of treatments from casual neglect to unspeakable cruelty. There were no organisations safeguarding badgers interests, and in any case, they were almost completely unprotected in law. Many setts were destroyed and badgers crushed underground during road and building construction, often because nobody took the trouble or had the necessary skills to identify the problem.
Badgers were thought of as vermin and gassing badger setts with cyanide was considered perfectly acceptable. Many surveys carried out by the Mammal Society before 1973 refer to badger setts as being 'regularly gassed '. Like so many wild animals, large numbers were killed on the roads, particularly where new roads crossed ancient badger paths. Worst of all, badgers were illegally killed by all sorts of means in the name of sport. They were dug from their setts, baited with dogs, shot, lamped, snared and poisoned. The Herts & Middlesex Badger Group was formed in 1984 to help redress this balance.
The first task was to assess the current situation. A survey had been carried out by the Mammal Group around 1970, chiefly by Michael Clark, the Mammal Recorder for Hertfordshire. During the past twenty years, this work has continued, so that today all of the two counties has been surveyed. This involves walking every hedgerow and searching every wood, copse and dell and carefully recording details of each sett and its environs. A database of over 1500 surveys representing 1000 badger setts has been compiled. However, the status of setts is constantly changing and members are engaged in regular sett monitoring, so that both accidental and deliberate interference can be appropriately and quickly dealt with.
Badgers and their setts are protected by law in the UK by the Badger Act of 1992 and the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981.
It is illegal for any person to:
Kill or injure a badger
Dig or take a badger
Possess a dead badger or part thereof
Interfere with, or disturb, a sett
Allow a dog to be put in a sett (without first obtaining a licence from DEFRA or English Nature which are only granted in exceptional circumstances).
 
The job of Badger Groups throughout the country has been considerably aided by the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 , which gives protection to the sett as well as the badger. A badger clan invests a considerable amount of effort in digging its sett and they are also fiercely territorial. These factors make it very difficult for them to move to a new location. The routine gassing of badger setts has largely ceased but illegal digging and lamping for badgers is still a problem.
Large numbers of badgers are still killed on the roads, despite several extensive fencing schemes carried out by the Badger Group in association with The Department of Transport and County Councils. The monitoring of planning applications has almost completely prevented occupied setts being destroyed by development. Retaining natural setts (together with foraging areas) is our primary strategy.

A41 construction

1992

Building an artificial sett

Rescue equipment

Orphaned cubs