Badger Surveys

The Eurasian badger is a protected species, so it and its habitats must be fully considered throughout all phases of development projects. This page outlines what might be involved in surveys and preparing mitigation proposals, whilst examples of how we have assisted project teams at Pontrhydyfen, Daresbury and Chester are available elsewhere. If you want to discuss how we might help with your project, please contact us.

Key Info:

• Badgers are protected by the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. This means it is illegal to
  • Make an attempt or succeed in wilfully killing, injuring or taking a badger
  • Intentionally or recklessly damage, destroy or obstruct access to a badger sett
  • Disturb a badger in its sett
  • Cruelly ill-treat a badger, dig for badgers or cause a dog to enter a badger sett
• Badgers may well cause problems for your development if you need to:
  • Use light machinery within 20m of a sett
  • Dig, apply pesticides, fell/uproot trees or use heavy machinery within 30m of a sett
• Badgers are known to hold very large territories, up to 300 hectares (approx. 300 international rugby pitches). So, whilst there may not be any setts on your land, there may still be badgers using the site for many different reasons.

There are a number types of badger survey and reasons that you may need to have one done.

Badger sett survey

This is usually a straightforward survey, unless there is dense vegetation or a need to access neighbouring properties, and is often conducted directly prior to site clearance/construction. The survey searches for badger setts in the construction zone and land within 30m of its boundary to ensure no disturbance of setts occurs. This is usually a recommendation of the Preliminary Ecological Appraisal/Phase 1 Habitat Survey or a requirement stipulated by your local County Ecologist/Biodiversity Officer. Such a survey can be completed at any time of the year.

Assessment of badger activity

This type of survey is done when you know, or suspect, there are badgers using your site. It could be that a sett entrance has been found within 30m your proposed construction zone or that there is a high level of badger activity within/near your site and the vegetation is potentially reducing the ability to survey the whole area fully. Optimum times for this survey are shown shaded dark green below, although it might be possible in the adjacent months shaded light green.

Depending on the nature of the badger activity, the site and the amount of information required, a range of techniques might be used

Camera-trapping – This uses a number of high-resolution cameras, which are triggered by movement of the badger and use infra-red light to capture images/videos of the activity in areas of interest. This is often undertaken in collaboration with a number of other passive survey techniques, including installing sand-traps and hair-traps in key areas to supplement the other information. The number of cameras or other methods will depend greatly on the complexity of the site, the number of areas of interest and the predicted usage by badger. This survey will take a minimum of four weeks to complete and will allow confident assessment of activity levels within a site and the activity status of any sett entrances present within the site.

Marked bait survey – This method is usually deployed directly after a camera-trapping survey and uses bait marked with indigestible coloured pellets to establish the affiliation of setts to a specific clan. This information is required to support the application to exclude badgers from a sett.

Closure of a sett

When a sett is found within 30m of your proposed development, it all gets a bit more complex. If you wish to go ahead with the development in that location, an application for a licence to close the sett in question will need to be made (to Natural Resources Wales or Natural England depending on your location). Normally, sett closure licences are only granted within the period shaded dark green below.

Before this can be done a number of factors will need to be decided

• Whether the sett closure will be temporary or permanent – this will depend on the proximity of the sett entrance to your development and the type of development that is being proposed.
• What kind of sett is it – Badgers create a number of different types of setts. They use a main sett for breeding; an annexe which is nearby and utilised as we would an extension; a subsidiary sett which is seasonally used (like a holiday home); and outlier setts (sporadically used).
• Who is using the sett – Badgers normally live in clans (small familial groups) and different members tend to use different setts with differing regularities. It is therefore important to understand that the sett that needs to be closed is used by a member of a nearby clan, so that it can safely return to an affiliated sett and will not be made ‘homeless’ by the closure. This is generally done using a combination of Camera-trapping and a Marked Bait Survey.

Once enough evidence has been generated to satisfy the ecologist and the licencing authority, an application can be made, and any mitigation actions (e.g. creation of an artificial sett nearby) that may be required will be determined. Upon the receipt of the licence, the process of closing the sett can begin, but it will still take a minimum of 21days before any activities with the potential to disturb the sett can commence.