British Wildlife Series: The Elusive Badger
My rump has suave wobble, my snout savvy twitch,
The claws on my forepaws can delve a deep ditch,
while these stripes down my maw keep the wolf from my door.
Snippet from The Worm and the Badger, Or Whose Earth is it anyway? by Rosalind Bleach and Laura Spence (found on wythamwoods.ox)
When you think of British Wildlife, what comes to mind? The red Fox with its bushy brush tail? Or a dusk-loving long-eared Bat? Or maybe the prickly little West European Hedgehogs that scurry through your garden at night? Most of us have caught glimpses of these icons of British Wildlife, even if just through a flash of white in the woods. But there is one elusive British creature that I have yet to see: the Badger.
A member of the Weasel family (Mustelidae), Meles meles, as they’re known in Latin, are the short, black-and-white-striped mammals that are led primarily by their sense of smell. Many of you may have first come across them in the classic children's story written by Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, or in Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox. Some of you may even remember the Badger being the emblem of Hufflepuff in Harry Potter, representing loyalty and patience. In fact, my knowledge of Badgers didn’t extend far beyond these pop culture references. I knew they lived underground, hidden away, I knew what they looked like, and I knew I wanted to see one in person. Twenty years later, and I’ve yet to accomplish that goal.
This takes me to a few months ago, when I attended the Generation Hope event at The Natural History Museum. It was here that I got to witness a panel of four individuals working across different sectors of Conservation and nature-related fields. I’d heard about the event through Lira Valencia’s Instagram (@outsidewithlira), an expert in Urban Wildlife and a figure I’d been following online for her inspiring content on UK birds. She made up one of the spots on the panel, with Russel Reed, Larissa Pinto Moraes, and Rhys Leighton making up the other three. Rhys Leighton, an Ecologist with a particular interest in Badgers, was the one who reignited my curiosity in the animal. Coming home from the event, I wanted to learn more, so I found myself scrolling through Rhys's Instagram account and was amused to find his content on “gang warfare between badger clans”. After doing some research of my own, I decided to reach out to Rhys to get some answers to my many questions, and that is how this piece came to life.
Sitting down for a chat with Rhys, I decided to start with the question of how rare these animals really are. It’s easy to think that Badgers must be an endangered species; this felt to me the most sensical explanation for why they’re so rarely seen.
According to Rhys:
“Defra [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] are undergoing another population estimation at the moment. I think there's a lot of assumptions being made that there is a robust population, because there was a robust population when it was last done, but that's not necessarily still the case.”
The last comprehensive survey was done between 2011-2013, but even then, large error margins could have affected the count. Badgers are also listed as ‘least concern’ by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature); however, this assessment was last made in 2015 and looks at the levels globally rather than just in the UK. Under the annotations on the IUCN Red List website, it says the assessment ‘needs updating’.
Whilst Badgers are also protected under The Protection for Badgers Act, this wasn’t created for conservation reasons. When discussing this with Rhys, he explained,
“Badgers are protected purely from an animal welfare stance, because they live underground in these big complex sets, and I think probably because they're native, are a long-living species, and are social and intelligent. We tend to value lives that are longer-living and intelligent more strongly, and so there's more of an animal welfare concern if you destroy their holes and badgers get killed inside.”
It’s clear that there is no definite population count for Badgers; with surveys both wildly out of date and inaccurate, it’s hard to get a picture of how well these animals are doing.
Another factor to consider when looking at their population levels is the history of Badger Culling. The largest Badger charity, The Badger Trust, had a total income of £301,448 and a total expenditure of £370,386 in the 2024 financial year. In their 2023-2028 strategy plan, they explain where this money is going: ending the Badger cull, the conservation of Badgers and their habitats, campaigning efforts and education. This is all brilliant; however, when you compare the money spent to protect Badgers compared to the amount that has gone towards Badger culling, it’s easy to worry about their future. Referring back to good old trusty Wiki, we can see that “As of 2024, the United Kingdom has culled 210,000 badgers at a cost of £58.8 million. In the same period, it culled 330,000 cattle. Bovine TB compensation paid to farmers costs the UK taxpayer around £150 million per annum.” Conservation efforts have been going up against a daunting figure of £58.8 million; it would be hard for any species to flourish under these conditions.
Remaining cautiously optimistic, it appears that Defra have brought an end to Badger culling for now, with the move to humane vaccinations being favoured. This decision is logical considering that studies show there are better ways to stop the spread of TB and ultimately, if there is a way that doesn’t involve the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent animals, shouldn’t it be the preferred option? The end of Badger Culling is a promising move, but as anyone who advocates for the environment or animals knows, that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the fight.
You might be wondering, as I was, if all this money has been going into finding and killing Badgers, then why do we still not have an accurate count of them? One reason could be wrapped up in their habitats; Badgers live in setts. Setts are “networks of underground burrows and tunnels and will house a mixed-sex group of 4 – 8 animals. A sett will consist of a main sett, where most of the badgers’ time is spent, and young are reared, and smaller, outlying setts, which are used as safe places to retreat to when foraging.” These hard-to-get-to setts do leave a trail of crumbs, however.
Rhys gave me a 101 Badger tracking lesson, and turns out, it’s not all about footprints:
“The actual tracks like footprints that badgers leave are really rare to find, because badgers are quite slow moving, and their bodies are low to the ground, so they don't leave very deep prints in the mud, and their body will often wipe them away.”
So, what can you track? It was here that Rhys shared with me the concept of Umwelt. He describes it as,
“a German word; I think the literal translation is environment, but it's basically about how a badger or any animal perceives the world, and what are its main senses or driving factors. And so, if I'm going onto a site, the first thing I'm thinking is, if I were a badger, where would I be? Like, what would be a nice spot?”
Putting himself into the Umwelt state of mind, Rhys shared with me what he looks for first,
“The most obvious thing is a badger hole, which is quite distinctive. If you see a hole that's the size of an A4 piece of paper in the landscape, it will either be a fox or a badger. But a fox, their hole will be more vertical and then a badger hole, because they're more low to the ground, will be the same sort of size, but people describe it as a D on its side.”
Next up, feeding:
“You might find feeding signs in the hole, like bits of snail shell might be in there. And then, interestingly, the snails.. I don't know if this is interesting or gross…snails usually make badger poo quite loose and runny.”
Not for the faint of heart, tracking Badger’s involves a whole lot of poo actually! Another behaviour that gives them away is called Latrineing. Rhys describes it as,
“a pit that's dug in the ground that's maybe 10 to 20 centimetres deep and has a poo in it. It's a behaviour they do to avoid conflict. They mark their territories with their poos by putting them in these pits.”
Lastly, and maybe most obviously for many, is to look out for Badger hairs:
“They're black and silver banding, but the main thing is they have a more square cross section than something like a deer's hair, so if you like pick it up and try and roll it between your fingers, you can feel it's got ridges down it.”
Tracking badgers through faeces, hairs or crushed snail shells is a lot cheaper than recording equipment and 24/7 CTV. With the lack of funds in the environmental sector, it is so important to encourage new generations to pursue eco careers, so they, like Rhys, can advocate, protect and educate the public on vulnerable species and places. Rhys knows first hand how a lack of funds can mean a lack of knowledge on incredibly fascinating and important animals. Coming back to his work with Badger ‘gang warfare’, he says:
“We know that they make clans and they have territories. What I found was that it looks like things are a lot more complex and dynamic than is maybe appreciated. It's not necessarily just familial groups. Sometimes you might get like a traitor badger that joins a different clan.”
Clans are made up of groups of roughly 4-8 mixed-sex Badgers, who all live together in their setts, but forage for food individually. Disputes between these clans occur over food, mates, or, in the case of the Badgers that Rhys has been monitoring, territory. Unfortunately, research in this area is lacking:
“The really interesting thing is the most significant research done on Badger behaviour in terms of these territorial disputes was done decades ago, and our landscape in Britain is very different now. It's not very well understood how we are changing the behaviour of badgers.”
Our disconnection to the environment could actually be contributing to this sheer lack of funding, research and knowledge. A study done by Professor Miles Richardson shows that “People’s connection to nature has declined by more than 60% since 1800.” This is exacerbated through a mixture of disappearing natural environments and a lack of exposure from literature, media and parents. Rhys adds to this by saying,
“If you went back 300 years, everyone would know about finding badgers and tracking them; they'd know about every species and what bits of evidence to look for, because it's just part of life. We've created this digital world and lost touch with our actual environment.”
It’s hard for people to advocate for something they don’t understand or are unaware is being threatened. Once upon a time, knowing which plants grew in your surroundings was essential to survival; it could help with hunger, medicine, and even shelter and clothing. Now that we buy everything we need from external sources, a lot of the time not even leaving the house in the process, our knowledge of the outside world has dwindled. If we don’t know about the plants around us, we don’t understand nature, and to not understand nature means to be unaware of the species who still rely on it for survival.
It was here that Rhys said something important for anyone trying to reconnect with the environment:
“You can have a relationship with these animals and understand them and have interesting interactions with them without ever actually seeing one.”
How do we do this though? How can we have a healthy relationship with these animals? Firstly, education is everything. Advocating for not culling Badgers is a brilliant start. Education would also make people aware of Badger holes and setts, causing less accidental damage to their homes. Something new that we haven’t had to consider much here in the wet and windy UK is the heat. According to Rhys,
“The heat is going to be brutal for them; they really didn't evolve to live in temperatures like this, so a water source in your garden helps everything, Badgers included.”
Making your garden a haven for all wildlife is one of the best things you can do. But, ultimately? Maybe the best thing you can do is get political:
“Go vote for someone who you believe is going to have a positive impact on the environment and care about climate change.”
Structural change is always going to be the most important part of climate action, and the climate affects us all, humans and Badgers alike.
A huge thank you to Rhys Leighton for his time and expertise. This piece would have been nowhere near as interesting and fun without his input.
People mentioned:
Rhys Leighton: @rhystouringnature
Lira Valencia: @outsidewithlira
Russel Reed: https://www.russellhreed.com/
Larissa Pinto Moraes (Executive Director of youth-led organisation Engajamundo): https://engajamundo.org/en/
Written by Shan Victoria Randall
Shannon (sometimes Shannon Victoria, sometimes Shannon Randall – pick one) is a Writer and Creative.
She loves to write about what matters most to her: the climate, nature, inspirational people, and social causes. She’s on her way to writing her first novel and is trying to break into the Publishing Industry!
Hobbies include: being a plant mum, crying over animal rescue videos and trying to perfect hard yoga poses (and failing).
