Days Are Getting Colder

Contrary to popular belief the British badger does not hibernate.  Setts have been recorded at a constant 1 - 3 degrees centigrade when the outside temperature has fallen as low as 12 - 17 degrees centigrade. They seem to know when the weather is to turn colder as I have observed many times over the years that just before a cold snap the badgers will double up on bedding and in the very coldest of the weather they can spend three or four days inside the sett without venturing out.

With all the government's reports of badgers being the main culprit of the spread of Bovine TB amongst cattle, a fact which is totally unscientifically proven and in my humble opinion totally inaccurate, it is worth sparing a thought for the badger, as the autumn will soon move into winter.  The months from the end of November through to the end of February  bring the majority of badger fatalities, for the British badger asks for no help and in the whole of my life time I have never seen him receive any.

This country is not awash with badgers as the government would have us believe.  The true facts are; the badger has never been particularly thick on the ground, like so much of our other British wildlife, the odds are stacked so very steeply against him.  So please spare a thought when you are all tucked up in bed of a night time in your warm houses with a guaranteed breakfast, lunch and dinner, the badger's meals are never a given.   A life I feel sure is plenty hard enough without this cursed badger cull.

The hard man Lord Protector of our woodlands is never more vulnerable than in the winter months.

Badgers are at their most vulnerable in winter.  Please watch my short film of this badger gathering bedding for the sett.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRk3de1WvM0