If your site’s likely to have badgers, your local planning authority might ask for a survey to be carried out before granting planning permission.

Our experience team of ecological consultants can help you find our if badgers are currently present around your site and, if so, how they are using the site.

Our services include;

• Badger survey – can be carried out anytime, but best carried out in the winter months, when vegetation had died back. We’ll look for signs of badgers including setts, paths, latrines and badger hairs. If badgers are using the site, our detailed report will advise on how your proposals can proceed in line with badger protection legislation.
• Licensing – if a badger sett is found on site then there may be legal considerations, because it is an offence to disturb, damage or destroy a badger sett. We can help you apply for a licence to navigate this legislation so that your works can proceed.

Get in touch with us and we’ll talk you through it. And it all comes in a great value package with friendly, expert advice.

Badgers: A Brief Life History

Badgers are highly social mammals that are a member of the weasel family. They live together in family groups or clans that typically range between 6-8 individuals, but can be as many as thirty-five. They are primarily nocturnal, emerging from their setts — a complex network of tunnels and chambers — at dusk or after dark in search of prey. Setts tend to be built on a slope, with woodland or thickets on the perimeter of farmland being the preferred habitat in Britain, however other vegetation types, as well as other natural – and even manmade environments may be used too.

While badgers do not hibernate, they become less active during the winter months between November and February, remaining in their setts in a state of torpor when it is extremely cold and/or snowy. When in torpor, badgers will lie low in the warmth of their sett, often for weeks at a time, living off fat reserves they accumulated during the warmer months.

Current Status and Why They’re Protected

While badgers are common across the United Kingdom, with the total population estimated to be around 250,000, due to animal welfare issues they are afforded legal protection by the Protection of Badgers Act, and the Wildlife and Countryside Act. As a protected species, it is not only an offence to deliberately injure, kill or capture a badger, it is also illegal to damage, destroy or disturb a badger sett without a permit to do so. Only a licensed ecologist (with the necessary permits) may interfere with an active badger sett.

How Our Badgers Surveys Work

The above legislation offers legal protection to badgers as well as their setts. Consequently, any proposed development on a site where badger setts may be present will need to conduct a walkover survey during the daytime to determine the location of the setts, and whether they are currently active or not. Our licensed ecologists can assist you with site surveys and propose mitigating measures to protect the badgers and allow your work to continue. During this survey our badger specialists will look for evidence of badger activity, such as shed guard hairs, foraging holes, badger tracks and dung; and will also identify habitat suitable for badger foraging, as well as what measures need to be undertaken to ensure the proposed development meets legal compliance. In addition we may conduct a desktop survey of available records and data for badgers in your area.