“Wild animals know better than humans what is right for them “. This statement made by the Chairman of the Shropshire Badger Group, is true of many instances of wild animal releases. We can, and often do, go to great lengths to assist a creature’s return to the wild, hoping they may stay a while in the area we have released them, because to our human eyes and minds this is the ideal habitat for them. Then to our surprise and dismay, we wake up one morning to find they have completely disappeared or, to put it more bluntly they have gone off and “ done their own thing “. Looking at it logically this is of course how it should be, and I suppose the silly thing is, is that we continue to be surprised.
Last summer, we found ourselves rearing four orphan badger cubs, all from quite different locations. Whilst we make every effort to return a straying badger cub immediately to its sett, occasionally there are times when this is just not possible, as in the case of the little cub ( one of the four ) that was found in the arms of some small boys who were taking it home “ to look after it “.
 While they may well have intended no harm, the implications of such an action are frightening. Badgers being probably the most territorial wild animal in Britain, the most difficult part of cub rehabilitation is trying to find a suitable area in which to release them.
Having looked at several possible sites, we finally settled for one that, to us, seemed the most ideal of all: safety from roads, safety from persecution, room to expand, ideal habitat, food supply and so on. The one drawback lay the relative proximity of the existing badger sett that was slightly to close for comfort. ( Having said that, however, it is certainly inadvisable to choose an area that is totally devoid of badgers, as one must always ask: why are there no badgers here ? ).
Thus the decision was made, and along with the aid of the S.B.G., with two of the local residents ( human ) constructed a magnificent artificial sett, encompassed by a large roomy enclosure with plenty of room to dig and excavate. Feeling very pleased with ourselves, we released the four cubs into their new home.
Despite our digging the perimeter fencing two feet deep underground their wild instincts obviously took over, as four days later they had tunneled out. This was even quicker than two orphan siblings of six years ago, that were released in a similar manner back into the area where they had been found, in that instance, they escaped on the ninth night, but returned for food in the enclosure every night for two months, so we had firm evidence that they were surviving. For the first few nights after the escape of the four there was considerable noisy badger activity, scuffling, bickering, yelping and then all went quite.
An injured or distressed badger will commonly hole up in barns or garden sheds where they are often found by dogs who, in turn alert their owner. The area where the cubs were released was a small, very quite village not much bigger than a hamlet: it is very unlikely, had even one of the cubs taken refuge in such a place, that one or other of the two couples involved in construction the sett would not have heard about it. It just suddenly went quite. Then just as we were thinking that all four cubs must have moved out of the area, we discovered that in the existing nearby badger sett there had appeared two new very active holes and increased activity at another one. All four cubs where tattooed before release, and coincidentally all four were sows. We are not likely ever to know for sure, but the absence of any reported sightings, together with the sudden appearance of the new holes may suggest the cubs integrated into the population.