Introduction
The badger Meles meles is one of our most popular and familiar mammals. However, as a consequence of their largely nocturnal habits, live badgers are seldom seen, despite their reasonably good numbers and widespread distribution, which extends over most of mainland Scotland.
Badgers have long been persecuted in Britain and this is the principal justification for their protection in law. However, badgers and their setts are also threatened, incidentally, as a result of everyday legitimate activities such as the construction and use of roads, industry, new housing, forestry operations and agricultural practices. These activities are not necessarily incompatible with the continued presence of badgers, provided the special needs of the animals are properly addressed and measures are taken to incorporate these requirements into planning proposals.
This booklet aims to provide developers and planners with an overview of the subject of badgers and development and of the associated protective legislation. It provides a framework for ensuring that adequate measures are in place to protect badgers from the possible consequences of development. It should not be regarded as a substitute for expert advice, which should always be sought from a badger specialist early in the planning process, if the presence of badgers is likely to become an issue. In this way, potential conflicts can be promptly identified and resolved and costly delays can therefore be prevented.
Badger hair is very distinctive and is often left in small tufts on barbed wire where a badger path passes underneath. The individual guard hairs are coarse and are typically white at each end with a black band in-between.
Badgers are extremely strong animals with powerful fore-legs and broad, spade-like fore-feet with strong claws - a set of adaptations that make them ideally-suited to a lifestyle in which digging plays an important part.
Badger setts are often located in woodland, hedgerows or amongst dense patches of gorse and scrub on steep banks close to fields. However, they also frequently excavate setts in disused railway cuttings or embankments, old quarries, open fields and even use landfills and former industrial sites.
In common with many mammals, badgers use their droppings to mark their territory. The faeces are deposited in small excavated pits, collectively known as latrines. These are often located around the margins of a badger clan's territory or close to their main sett and are therefore useful in determining which areas are used by different social groups.