Badger surveys can be completed at any time during the year and consist of a systematic search of habitat badgers may use to look for evidence of their presence, including setts, latrines containing droppings, scratching posts, guard hairs (often found at the entrance of setts or caught on fence posts or bramble), and pathways through vegetation.
Only badger setts in use are protected by law, and monitoring may be required to ascertain if any sett found is still being used by badgers.
Setts can extend far underground, which means that surveys should not only be completed on the development site itself, but also within around the surrounding 50m.
Abandoned badger sett
Abandoned badger sett
The Legal Bit
| Individual badgers and their setts are protected under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which makes it illegal to kill, injure or take badgers or to interfere with a badger sett. |
Gray Ecology 