It is the first site of the day, and my boots are wet through. Socks too, for that matter. Thick leggings (thick! it’s July!!), soaked through. It’s been a bit of a washout summer so far, although I’m grateful for the lack of 40’c days on the horizon.
(It is raining again now, as I type this up and look out on a sky full of grey clouds.)
Honestly, I should have realised and thrown my wellies in the car instead of work boots; last night’s bat survey was cancelled because of a Met Office amber warning. The signs were there, I just ignored them. Just as I am now ignoring the squeltch of my socks, as I trudge through long grass back to my car.
I’ve been asked to monitor a potential badger (Meles meles) sett at a site for a few weeks, so yesterday I put together what I needed. Three trail cameras- with SD cards to capture footage and batteries so they don’t die over the month that I’m leaving them out- zip ties, and stakes to attach them to if there aren’t any suitable tree branches. I forgot a mallet. I always forget a mallet. Most of the time badgers dig in sandy soil, so it’s more a case of having to make a sandcastle around the stake, rather than being completely unable to knock it into the ground- but using a second stake (no trail camera yet attached) is a fairly foolproof backup option. Until it’s the last camera I need to hammer into the ground, and then there’s no stake to use for my last stake…
Anyway, that’s not going to be a problem today, because I’m relying on not needing all three stakes. This sett is tucked deep in scrub on a hillside, underneath an established hazel hedgerow and between some very thick bramble patches. After parking up, it’s boots on and a quick appraisal of the hillside, choosing to head up the left hand side where I can Monty Python silly-walk my way through bramble.
This only lasts about 20 seconds before I’m adopting a new tactic, ducking under branches to scramble up to a good spot for my first camera. I zip-tie it to a tree trunk (see, didn’t actually need all those stakes) facing a sandy spot where I think rabbits probably hang out, if anything- it’s not a proper hole, but there’s a very obvious mammal path running its way through the undergrowth.
I follow it, and end up crawling through the undergrowth. Badgers are big, but they’re not people-big! At least it’s dry under here, as I set up two other cameras overlooking a big hole and another section of the mammal trail. There might have been a main sett here once, but now it’s just the one entrance I can find- which means it’s classified as an ‘outlier’ sett now, probably only occasionally used, rather than current population: >1.
I practically fall out of the hazel hedgerow and soak my boots in the aforementioned grass, regretting the fact that I’ve got at least two more stops before I’m homeward bound, with just one dry sock left in my kit bag. The bats had it right, staying inside.
What can you do to help badgers?
Badgers are regularly persecuted in the UK due to carrying bovine tuberculosis (bTB), with an annual cull occuring yearly since 2013, resulting in the death of over 230,000 badgers. From the Badger Trust website;
The UK government says the badger cull is a cornerstone of their policy to stop the spread of bTB. Yet cattle spread over 94% of bTB, so why blame badgers? Especially when every cow killed due to bTB has tested positive for the disease, and no one ever tests a badger.
Cattle measures are the best way to control bTB: enhanced biosecurity, better cattle testing, and an effective cattle vaccine. Wales and Scotland do not cull badgers and have more success reducing bTB in cattle than England.
Solutions to bTB should be based on science, cost and animal welfare grounds. The badger cull fails on all of these.
The badger cull is an unnecessary and wasteful policy – a national wildlife tragedy at a time of critical nature depletion. We need to End The Cull.
Sign the petition here.
Welcome to my substack newsletter, Ecology Adventures. As a full-time ecologist, misadventures in nature are the bread and butter of my day to day. Some people find them rather entertaining (as do I, once I’ve washed off the dirt). I aim to drop a new letter from the field at least once a month. If you enjoyed this tale, please share it with your friends.