Badger (Meles meles) I’ve had an interest in badgers for several years. They’re fascinating animals and their nocturnal behaviour makes them even more mysterious. After returning to the borders, I decided to take the plunge and work towards my level 1 in Badger Surveying. This in turn has led me to set up a local branch of the wildlife charity Scottish Badgers, with the aim of identifying and monitoring badger setts in the region.

Badgers belong to the same family as stoats, weasels and otters. Their powerful front paws make them excellent diggers and anyone who has seen a badger sett can attest to the amount of soil and rubble they can move to create their homes. Around 80% of their diet is earthworms but they are omnivores and will supplement their diet with a variety of other foods, particularly fruit and berries in the autumn. Their love for an easy meal sometimes brings them into gardens as they forage around for peanuts and seed left for the birds.

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The biggest threat to the badgers living locally is traffic and development. I’ve personally recorded far too many badgers that have been killed by cars on the Melrose bypass and between the Melrose and Tweedbank roundabouts. A lot of development is also earmarked for the local area with new paths, housing and supermarkets. All of these will undoubtedly have a negative effect on badger territories. As a result, we are focussing our branch surveys around here for the next few months.

Our first task is to identify individual setts in the area and then monitor them to establish the size of clan using each one (locally the average seems to be 3 or 4 badgers per sett). The A6091 has three wildlife underpasses and we need to establish if they are all being used by badgers (and other wildlife) to move between foraging grounds. If badgers are not using them then we need to find out why. 

I hope that by building up a clear picture of our local badgers and their behaviour, we can encourage the local council, developers and BEAR Scotland consider the impact their decisions will have on the local badger population.

So how can you help? If you know of any local setts, have seen badgers or even have them visiting your garden then we’d love to hear from you. You can contact me by email on [email protected] or like our facebook page to keep up to date with what is happening with the branch and view some of our trail camera footage.

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