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NPT Badger Patrol

Posted by bumblebee from Swansea - Published on 21/10/2011 at 07:50
2 comments » - Tagged as Education, Environment, Topical, Volunteering

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Yn Gymraeg

With the possibility of a badger cull looming, I went to meet some members of the Neath Port Talbot Badger Group on an evening watch to find out why they want to protect the striped foragers.

I got in contact with Gerald James, the chair of the local Badger Group, who agreed to take me on a watch with the group to learn more about the animals. Mr James has been involved with the group for over 20 years, and his enthusiasm and experience shone through.

He explained that at this time of year the badgers have already put on their fat stores for winter, so they are not foraging as actively as in summer – but there was still a reasonable chance of us spotting some if they didn’t notice us first.

The sett - the name for a badger’s home – which we went to visit in Margam is certainly well hidden: it took a 10-minute walk involving much ducking under branches and clambering over fallen trees to reach.

As the animals are quite wary of humans, we had to sit apart 30 feet or so from the tunnel entrances which were intertwined into the roots of trees. I nestled into my place on a small blanket in the leaf litter and waited patiently.

The forest was tranquil with the dappled light through the canopy only occasionally disrupted by a falling leaf. Now and then I thought I heard a rustling and quickly pulled my binoculars to my face in the hope of catching a badger emerging from underground.

After an hour or so the light began to fade. Through whispers we decided to call it an evening and quietly approached the sett for a closer inspection. Suddenly, David Ward, the Cimla officer, flashed his torch at us from an entrance further down the slope – a badger!

I rustled through the leaves towards him, but frustratingly was not able to get to see the creature before it darted back into its burrow, clearly startled by the scent of humans and the torchlight.

There are estimated to be more than 1,000 badgers in NPT and the group tries to monitor them every few months to see how active setts are by looking for signs such as paw prints and badger hair.

Mr Ward has learned a variety of tracking skills over the last year since starting with the group. “If you go out after its snowed, you can sometimes find whole new setts from the prints they leave,” he explained while checking scratch marks on a tree trunk. But the need to check the setts also has another side because incidents of badger-baiting and snaring still occur.

Mr James said: “It’s very difficult to prove that badger baiting has been going on. Often, the only way people can be prosecuted is because their dogs will have heavily scarred faces from fighting badgers.”

If the proposed badger cull does go ahead, it will target badgers that live near farmland where the fact they can carry the respiratory disease tuberculosis (TB) has got them into trouble.

Farmers’ Union of Wales spokesman and Vice-president Brian Walters has previously been reported as saying: “Cattle farmers are being crippled by (TB), are incurring massive extra costs and are seeing their businesses locked down.

“Yet we seem to be procrastinating over the major obstacle to disease eradication, which is the massive presence of TB in badgers.”

The Badger Trust, however, argues that other animals such as deer also spread TB to cattle and says the cost of implementing the cull outweighs the difference it makes in terms of the number of cattle saved.

There are also differing views about the most humane way to kill any badgers in the selected culling areas. Instead, the trust supports TB vaccination as an alternative, although this too has a cost.

A decision on the Welsh badger cull will be made in spring 2012.

Neath Port Talbot Badger Group has more than 60 members, but not all of these are active in checking setts and instead lend support in other ways.

Some members help to rescue injured badgers and are involved in nursing the less serious cases back to health, while others simply make donations.

I might not have managed to see a badger for myself, but I did share the excitement felt by members of the group – it is easy to see the appeal of the creatures and why they were chosen as the logo for UK wildlife trusts.

Anyone who would like to get involved with the badger group can contact them via email: npt-badgers@live.co.uk

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IMAGE: Badger strip tail by Andreas-photography