Badgers have an Act of Parliament (Protection of Badgers Act 1992) to themselves.
These well known creatures live in family groupings known as clans. Different parts of the clan live in multi-entranced burrows known as setts. Each clan will normally have a large main sett in which the young are usually born, together with a series of annex, subsidiary and outlier setts listed in order of decreasing importance. Each clan will occupy a fiercly defended territory and this means that many areas of the countryside are divided into a series of such territories within which badgers forage for food, mainly earthworms and other invertebrates.
Both badgers and their setts are protected by law and developing sites with badgers is not easy.
Remember that it is an offence to wilfully kill, injure or take a badger, or attempt to do so. Also that it is an offence to damage, destroy or obstruct a badger sett or disturb a badger while in its sett.
Guidelines are available suggesting how close various operations can occur close to a sett.
A general guideline is that if there is a hint of badgers using or occupying a site, you should take expert advice before committing yourself to a development.
Potentially damaging activity within 30m of a sett may need a licence from English Nature. In particular, you will need a licence if you are to use:
- heavy machinery such as earth scrapers within 30m of a sett,
- mechanical excavators within 20m of a sett or
- hand equipment within 10m of a sett.
These distances are taken from the nearest sett entrance.
Given an understanding of how badgers live, it is very often possible to develop around a sett as long as adequate land is allowed around the sett and there is adequate safe access to foraging areas. This is always the best way to proceed if you have badgers on your site.
Given a detailed study it is sometimes possible to obtain a licence to disturb or close down a smaller sett of lesser importance to a badger clan, but only in certain circumstances and if alternative setts are available.
Such disturbance (if licensed) can only be undertaken during specific times of the year (usually between July and October inclusive). It is possible to construct artificial setts as replacements, but this is a skilled job and their placement and construction is a matter for qualified and experienced specialists.
We are often asked why we cannot catch badgers when they occur on a development site and move them elsewhere. This is a difficult operation and would be licensed only in exceptional circumstances and usually only where there is a nature conservation reason.
A prerequisite would be the ability to capture the whole badger family and finding an area free of badgers into which translocated animals could be released. Such areas are few and far between, especially in lowland UK where most developments occur. |