Baker Consultants

Badger survey

Unpopular but protected

It's vital to know if and where you have badgers on your site. They are relatively easy to survey for and tried and tested methods of exclusion and mitigation can be employed with positive results for wildlife and your project. Their legal protection include their setts. As well as the groundwork usually understood to be homes to badger, other structures may be used for shelter and include: spaces among rocks and boulders, under garden sheds and raised buildings, among hay bales or under hedges or bushes.

Find out more about Species and Habitat surveys

Protection and survey methods

Badgers are protected under the Badgers Act 1992. This makes it an offence to wilfully kill, injure, take, possess or cruelly ill-treat a badger, or to attempt to do so; or to intentionally or recklessly interfere with a sett. Sett interference includes disturbing badgers whilst they are occupying a sett, as well as damaging or destroying a sett or obstructing access to it.

Removal of significant areas of badger foraging habitat may also contravene the Act, as it could be regarded as cruelty. A sett is any structure or place which shows signs indicating it’s currently being used by a badger. This means that the tunnels and chambers and the areas immediately outside the entrances are all part of the sett as well as any other structure used as refuge.

Potential impacts to badgers that should be considered include damage or loss of setts, loss of foraging areas and disturbance to badgers while they’re occupying setts with noise, lights, vibration, fires or chemicals. Remote monitoring and bait marking are effective survey methods that give robust data to aid in drawing up appropriate mitigation plans.

Strict guidance from Natural England must be followed to carry out licensed work with badgers on your site.

Badger survey

Why Baker Consultants?

Baker Consultants is extremely experienced in designing and implementing badger mitigation schemes. We have worked with rail and infrastructure developers to make safe existing services and develop strategies for incorporating suitable mitigation into construction projects. Our innovative use of remote monitoring can save you time and money on your project. See our case studies for more information on project experience.

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Badger survey

Working with Network Rail

Baker Consultants are called upon frequently to consult on badger setts for planning and development projects. Network Rail drafted us in to help assess badger activity at a site in Bedfordshire ahead of upgrading and maintenance works on the railway embankment of a little used railway line. Our monitoring of the sett enabled Network Rail to close the setts in accordance with Natural England requirements, allowing Network Rail to proceed with planned works.

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