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FAQs

Badgers in your garden

There are badgers in my garden, what should I do?

Badgers may have already been visiting your garden for some time without you noticing. Firstly establish why are they visiting, is it for passage, for feeding, or for denning (setts)? You may notice a well worn path through your garden if the former, which suggests they’ve been using it for some time. Best to leave them to it (and maybe even pop out a trail camera to record what they’re up to!). If they’re feeding, you may notice some digging in your lawn or flower beds. This is often seasonal, as they dig for bulbs in the spring, earthworms spring and autumn, and eat fallen fruit and bird feed over the autumn. These holes in the lawn can easily be trod back in. If they’ve possibly dug a sett under an outbuilding, keep an eye on this for a couple of weeks – in the summer this is quite common, as juveniles start exploring their territory. Remove any easy food items such a bird feed and you’ll often find they move on by themselves. Remember badgers and their setts have legal protection, so it would be an offence to, or attempt to, block these, plus blocking a hole is only likely to trap a badger inside. If there’s substantial excavations, or there’s concerns about infrastructure damage, please get in touch for further advice.

Badgers have poor eyesight, so it’s important you make yourself heard if you’re worried about encountering a badger at night. If you have pets they will generally avoid one another, but to be safe, prior to letting them out and night time, scan your garden and make a noise such as clapping your hands and wait a while. This gives any badgers the chance to acknowledge your presence, and run away to safety. Like any wild animal they will choose to run away and hide rather than confront.

For more information see our Badgers & Gardens page.

Can I feed the badgers that visit my garden?

We generally recommend to avoid putting food out for badgers, as it can habituate them to humans, cause reliance, and potential conflicts with neighbours. A handful of peanuts or soft pet food per badger would be a welcome snack, however this could cause them to spend more time in your garden foraging. A bowl of water is fine, and recommended especially in drier and frozen times, and can benefit other species too. This should be cleaned regularly and disinfected.

Badgers visit my garden regularly. Can I or my pets catch TB from them?

No. We do not have TB in Scotland.

Are there any diseases or parasites I or my pets could catch from badgers?

Badgers have fleas and lice that have co-evolved alongside badgers, so cannot survive off of a badger. They may also carry ticks, which are known to spread Lyme’s Disease. In some areas with a high density, of badgers, mange could be transmitted, however it’s not very common for badgers to suffer from mange. There are no other known transmissible diseases.

Volunteering

I would like to watch badgers. Where are my nearest setts?

We cannot give out details of sett locations because of the problems with persecution of badgers. However, if you join your local badger group there will be opportunities to watch setts with experienced people.

I would like to get more involved with your work, what could I do to help?

As a charity we rely almost entirely on volunteers, so we would love to have you on board! Please see our Volunteer page for more details on specific roles.

I would like to do a school/university project on badgers, can you help?

Yes! Please get in touch to discuss further.

Roads

I keep seeing dead badgers on my local roads, is this normal?

Please report any dead badgers you’ve seen via our online report form. We cannot know about road hotspots without people reporting this information, so it’s very useful. Certain times of the year we see spikes in road casualties, most notably early spring and early autumn. These are times when badgers are feeding up as much as possible, and therefore roam further distances, often requiring crossing roads. As they have poor eyesight, they often don’t see the incoming cars, and can dash out under the wheels. Mitigation is difficult, as signage seems to rarely work (and risks drawing attention to badger presence, which can lead to persecution), however there are alternatives such as traffic calming measures and tunnels under roads.

Do you remove/collect dead badgers?

We are unable to recover bodies as there are unfortunately just too many of them, and we do not have the facilities to do so. Local authorities will often have a highways or waste department who can remove them, or on major routes the road management company. While we cannot recover the bodies, it is very important to log these sightings with us, so please do report them to us as well.

I have seen a dead badger on the road, but I don’t think it was killed by a car?

As badgers are stocky creatures, they tend to absorb a lot of the impact when hit by a car, which causes serious internal injuries, and subsequently can look uninjured. If it is safe to do so, we recommend checking any bodies first to ensure it is dead, and secondly to check if there are any suspicious injuries. If you suspect a badger has been killed by other means, you should notify the Police on 101 so it can be taken for post mortem. If the badger is still alive, please phone the Scottish SPCA on 03000 999 999 or your local wildlife rescue or 24 hour vet clinic.

Land Use

I think there is a badger sett where a proposed development or tree felling is due to take place. What shall I do?

If there is a known active sett and machinery within 30m of it, phone the Police immediately. Take a note of the incident report number, and get in touch with us. If the works have not yet started, for planning you can check the local authority online Planning Portal to see what the development is, or with forestry the Scottish Forestry Public Register for felling permission. Please then get in touch with our Operations Coordinator with this information and we can look into whether the case officers are aware of badger presence, and whether the relevant licenses are in place.

For more information please see our Badgers & Land Management Page.

I have a sett on my land and am due to cut down trees/build a new house/plough a field, what can I do?

While badger setts have legal protection, there is a licensing system through NatureScot which enables certain works to be done near a sett, although they come with conditions to ensure the badgers remain safe. Rule of thumb is if you are to be within 30m of an active sett, you will need a licence. Please contact us to discuss this further, or the NatureScot licensing team on 01463 725364 or licensing@nature.scot

Crime

Contact the Police on 999 as an ongoing incident, and then let us know when you can. Do not attempt to approach these people yourself. Keep a safe distance, and if able to do so, make a note of date and time, individuals involved (height, build, clothing), dogs (breed, colour, injuries), and equipment used, such as number of spades, and if a vehicle is present, the make, model, colour and licence plate of this.

I think I’ve come across a sett interference, do I need to report it?

You can phone the Police on 101 to note this, or please get in touch with us to discuss further.

Please look at our Badgers & The Law page for more details on types of badger crime you might encounter.

Why are badgers protected in Scotland when they are culling them in England and Wales?

Badgers are protected in England and Wales too and any culling there will be strictly limited and under licence if it happens at all. Culling is as a result of Bovine TB, which affects livestock and wildlife. All the scientific evidence clearly shows that culling badgers in an attempt to control Bovine TB will make matters worse rather than alleviating the problem. Scotland is a Bovine TB free country and there is no TB within the badger population here. This status has been achieved by careful testing of cattle and movement controls where necessary and NOT by culling badgers. For more information on Bovine TB please see our Badgers & Farming page.

Myths

I’ve heard various sources say badger numbers ‘out of control’, is this true?

Simply put, no. Badgers in Scotland were almost extinct by the end of the 1800’s, and certainly saw local extinctions in some areas. Since ever increasing protections have come into legislation (due to continued persecution), what we are currently seeing in Scotland now is a recovery of numbers. You may see some argue that the lack of predators in the UK means that badger numbers are unmanaged, but that’s simply not true. Badgers can only exist where there is suitable food and suitable diggable ground. Our 2006-2009 Scottish Badger Distribution Survey sampled 877 random 1km quadrats all over the country, with only 30% of these squares showing some form of badger presence. Likewise in European countries where badgers exist along with predators such as lynx, wolves and bears, studies have found predation to be very low of badgers anyway. The rate of road casualties far exceeds the rate natural predation would be, so while there may not be this perceived ‘natural control’, our own activities apply pressures on numbers. Remember the number of setts and the number of entrance holes does not indicate the number of badger presence either – a 40 entrance sett can easily only be home to a single pair of badgers.

Are badgers the reason why there’s declines in species such as hedgehogs/bumblebees/ground nesting birds?

While badgers can and do predate on hedgehogs, bumblebee nests and eggs, these are incredibly rare incidences, as badgers are opportunistic feeders who predominantly feed on earthworms, which can make up to 50-70% of their diet. Scotland much like the rest of Britain, faces huge declines of biodiversity that is unprecedented and more serious than other European countries, as currently reported by the WWF Living Planet Report 2020. To once again scapegoat badgers, who have co-evolved for tens of thousands of years with these species, detracts from the very serious issue of land use in the UK no longer being able to support the diversity of species it once did, due to rapidly changing land use and intensification.

For additional information on this, please see the NatureScot literature review of badgers and their effects on Biodiversity in Scotland.