John Lister-Kaye Website Header

Badger Ecology

The badger is a medium-sized land mammal. It is a carnivore like the fox and the wildcat. Carnivores are especially adapted to eat meat – they have very sharp teeth for biting and tearing and often have sharp claws for catching and holding prey. The badger belongs to the family “mustelidae” – this is the weasel family and members of this family are called mustelids. Other members of this family are weasels, stoats, pine martens, polecats and otters. The main features of this family are that they have 5-toed feet with claws and a big scent gland at the base of their tails. Smell is very important to them and the scent glands are used to mark territories and sometimes even other animals. Male badgers are called “boars” whilst females are called “sows”.

The Badger Sett

A group of badgers is called a cete (from the French word for city – cite) and the badgers house is called a sett. The sett is a hole under ground which usually has several entrances. Some setts have been in use for decades or perhaps even centuries. They usually have several chambers including a sleeping chamber or bedroom. Grass and bracken is often collected in order to provide bedding. The badger keeps the sett extremely clean with regular cleaning sessions and piles of old bedding can often be found outside the entrance to active setts.
 
The Badger Diet
Although badgers are carnivores they have an omnivorous diet and flattened molars for grinding vegetation — this means that they will eat almost anything! Earthworms are their main food but they also eat beetles, fruit and berries, small mammals, slugs and bulbs. They spend as much as 10 hours every day foraging for their food over an area as big as 50 hectares – this is the equivalent of about 70 football pitches! They often follow the same routes every night giving rise to well-trodden “badger paths”.
 
The Badger Family
Badgers are social animals—they like company! They usually breed once a year and have a litter of 1 to 3 cubs. The cubs are born between January and March and stay safely underground for the first 7-8 weeks. After this time their mother starts to bring the cubs above ground for lessons on how to find food! The cubs are completely independent by the time they reach 4 months of age but may stay with the family for 2 years or more.
 
History

Badgers have been in the UK for many thousands of years and have been hunted throughout this time. They were hunted mainly for their fur which was used to make clothes, sporrans and shaving brushes, but they have also been hunted for sport. Badgers were also dug out of their homes and captured so that they could be forced to fight against dogs. Both of these practices still occur in some places and they have resulted in many badgers being killed. In addition, thousands of badgers are killed every year on our roads. As people have learnt more about wildlife and conservation, persecution of badgers has reduced. Gates in fences and tunnels under roads have also helped to reduce badger deaths on roads. At this time, the badger population is doing well with approximately 350,000 badgers in the UK. Although this seems like a large number, because they are mostly nocturnal, very few people have actually seen badgers.

Visit the Aigas badger hide page.


Back to Top
beaver video

Podcasts