How to track down a badger sett

Arguably the most charismatic British mammal, the Eurasian badger (Latin name: Meles Meles) is the tank among our mammal species. Able to climb, swim, and sprint at up to 45mph, they’re brilliantly adapted for any situation. Strictly omnivorous, over 50% of a badger’s diet (much more according to some people) is exclusively made up of Earthworms, although they will eat pretty much anything. From fruit, nuts, and leaves to toads, bees’ nests; even hedgehogs and rabbits are hunted down and killed.

Two badgers caught on a camera trap, the secret weapon of any mammal

watcher.

However, owing to their nocturnal habits and secretive nature, they’re often hard to see in the flesh, more often found dead at the side of the road. Luckily for us though, they leave signs of their presence everywhere and this blog post will be a basic guide about how to find these elusive animals because they’re probably a lot closer to you than you think…

Where to start looking?

Being such adaptable animals, badgers readily colonize a range of habitats, including forests, uplands, meadows, and increasingly urban gardens. Their preferred habitat though is deciduous woodland (a woodland that annually sheds its leaves), with a nearby open green space (e.g. arable fields) which is where they’ll forage for earthworms. Having said that, they’re not that picky, and anywhere 
where woodland (or any form of cover) meets open land is the best place to start looking.

First, go directly to where the woodland meets the open area, as this is normally where they’ll prefer to build the bulk of their sett. Look into the trees, for large ‘ant hills’: piles of often sandy-colored earth that have been excavated, known as spoil. They can stand out and be quite large if part of an active sett too.

Make sure to try and be as thorough as possible, walk around as much of the border as you can, scan the trees and scrub for those little humps, it does work too, as the first sett I found was only because I noticed a little pile of sandy earth in some bushes and decided to investigate.

A less-defined path made by a badger, after following this it lead me straight to

the sett. Also, note it's an almost perfect habitat.

Signs further away from the sett:

Entrance to a badger sett-badger setts have a D

shaped entrance as shown here.

If you’ve had no luck, then it’s time to zoom out and look for signs that can be found further away from the sett. The first of these is a path or run. Being such low-slung and hairy animals, badgers are a bit like the brooms of the forest, and once they’ve walked along a certain route a few times, they wear away the vegetation and some of the ground. These paths can be quite long, although they are much more obvious closer to the sett, where they’re used a lot more.

The most obvious are completely devoid of any vegetation and usually have the top layer of the earth too, exposing the lighter soil underneath. But lookout for the less-used ones too, where the vegetation has been parted. Generally, badger runs are about 30cm wide 
(from my experience) and roughly 30-40cm tall if it's been made through thick vegetation.

This can help separate them from paths made from other animals like deer and foxes, which are often a lot less defined, and much narrower (especially with foxes). Another way to find out is to follow it, especially if it leads into a woodland, as deer ones often stop once they reach cover, but badger ones should end at a sett. Don’t stress out over this too much though, as they’ll often share paths and there are much more reliable signs to look for.

Another path parallel to a sett in the bushes behind

it.

One of these are tracks, as badgers can travel over 22km foraging in just one night, so it’s a good indicator far away from the sett. Their tracks are medium-sized, with a broad, stout interdigital (middle) pad and long claw marks are often seen. The main way to tell them apart from something like a fox or a cat though is to look at the toes: badgers are the only ones to have five toes, everything else will have four or less (unless it has some sort of mutation but it’ll still look different).

Another sign that can be found quite far from the sett, although not always the most reliable, are the marks left from where the badgers have been foraging. Because so much of their diet is made up of earthworms, they do a lot of digging around, leaving very messy areas 
of turned over mud and roots, but sometimes they can be quite distinctive.

Remember, FIVE toes, no more, no

less.

Unlike rabbits and foxes, when badgers dig, they’ll normally make quite a round conical hole, matching the shape of their nose, whereas rabbits and foxes normally leave a rectangular hole, but this isn’t consistent.

The badger who did this scat had clearly eaten

a lot of worms.

Sometimes accompanying these are latrines. A warning to other roaming badgers and predators that they’re stepping into someone else’s land, they’re frequently made at the border of a badger clan’s territory, sometimes quite a distance from their setts. Being very hygienic, badgers will create a little hole beforehand, and from looking at the scat itself, you can also quite easily determine what they’ve been eating. After eating a lot of worms, the scat is very runny and smooth, whereas if they’ve been eating something like beetles it’ll be dark, and any remains like exoskeletons should be quite obvious.

Getting closer…

The closer you get to a badger sett, the more of these signs you’ll start to see, and the more concentrated they’ll get. One of these signs is badger fur, which can be found a little way away from the sett, but a lot of the time it’ll be within a few hundred meters if not closer.

A classic little foraging sign made

by a badger-note the shape of it

and how it matches the shape

of a badger's nose. 

Some typical fur from a badgers back, although you

probably won't find this much on one fence.

The commonest type of fur found is the stuff from a badger’s back and sides, as they squeeze under fencing or scratch themselves on a piece of wood, and while appearing grey, each individual hair is actually black and white. Most of the time, it’s about 2/5 black in the middle, 2/5 white on one end, then on the other around 1/5 white. While some dog and cat breeds have similar looking fur, badger fur will usually be slightly bent, and if you roll it between your fingers it’ll feel very jagged and angular, but most cats and dogs will have near-cylindrical fur. It’s also more common than you might think, so be sure to check any wire fencing in the area you’re searching for badgers in.




Is the sett active or not?

Assuming you’ve found the sett, you might wonder if there are actually badgers using it, because a surprising amount of the time badger setts will be found vacated, for whatever reason. There are lots of things to look for here that tell you this, although I’ll only mention some.

 The first and probably the one that most tells you it’s inactive is how clean it is since an active badger sett will have a nice wide, open entrance, clear of any vegetation. However, if you find a badger sett with plants growing in front of it or inside it, it shows you it hasn't been used in a while.

Now, something to look for in an active badger sett is bedding. Being the germaphobes that they are, (not really, otherwise they

Some typical bedding left on the spoil infront of a 

badger sett entrance.

wouldn’t live in holes in mud) they regularly take out their old bedding (normally grass/hay) and dump it outside the sett entrance, ready to drag in some clean stuff. Look around the entrances to the sett, especially on the spoil heap in front of it, for any hay that’s been left there. There can be quite a lot sometimes too.

A nice sized badger sett entrance, notice there's

nothing obstructing it, and part of a run to the left

leading into it.

Although they are clean animals, badgers do (like all of us) smell pretty bad sometimes, and sometimes when around a sett entrance for long enough, you’ll get the old and quite musty smell of a badger. The good thing is it’s very distinctive from the smell of foxes, which smell bizarrely similar to someone smoking weed.

Badger, Fox, or Rabbit?

 Badgers, rabbits, and foxes all live in underground tunnel systems, and sometimes even share one, like one I found that had both foxes and badgers bunking together. But more often than not, they’ll have their own designated ones.

Out of the three, badgers usually have the biggest entrances, being such large animals,

Always follow the paths and you will be rewarded.

and the hole is normally shaped like a ‘D’ on its side, while fox ones are normally (not always) a bit smaller, won’t have that characteristic ‘D’ shape and won’t be as clean of plants. Outside fox earths, you’ll often also find the remains of prey they’ve killed, but outside badger setts, you’ll only find some straw.


Rabbit warrens, on the other hand, can be a similar shape and size to badger’s sett and can have a large spoil heap in front of them too. Usually, though the best way to tell if it’s the entrance to a rabbit warren is to look inside, a badger sett will stay consistently large and go straight down, whereas a rabbit warren will often get narrower straight away, or steer off to the right or left.

Hopefully, this was useful and happy badger hunting!  

Are there big cats in the UK!?

Panthers, Leopards, and Pumas? This doesn’t sound like your typical British wildlife! But shockingly, sightings, footprints, and even sheep carcasses have been emerging all across the UK, with concentrations around National Parks like Dartmoor in the South and the West. Some people have grouped these with UFOs and Werewolves, but is it really so

Could these 'big cats' just be another bigfoot?

  outlandish? Is there a possibility there are big cats roaming the shadows of Britain’s countryside?


How could leopards and panthers even get there in the first place?

The short answer is yes, there could be big cats out there, they’re highly adaptable, plus we have all the prey they’d need. But are there? While no one knows for sure, there’s a lot of potential evidence, with sightings coming from credible sources such as zookeepers, naturalists, even members of the British Army. There’re also some plausible explanations for how they could’ve got out there.


 In my opinion, the most credible is that they were released as a result of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, a law passed in 1976, stating that no one can own any dangerous animals unless under license. During the years prior, big cats were becoming increasingly fashionable, with black leopards being extremely popular with gangs, as they were used to intimidate rivals. However, many people had to substitute them for Pumas (just for the record, pumas, mountain lions, and cougars are all the same animal!) which were more common, and easier to buy and keep.


After the act was passed though, while some people sought out licenses or turned over their pets, lots were released into the wild, but it’s not known how many, since most were done secretly. Recently there have been people confessing though, like a previous animal trainer who told a newspaper about how he released his puma and black leopard into rural Devon. He also said all his friends who owned big cats had done the same, just in different locations.

A Puma, Cougar, Mountain Lion, whatever you want to call it-more

commonly owned than black panthers because of how cheap and

easy they were to keep.

There are also other theories, such as one claiming feral and domestic cats have interbred, creating large ‘mutant’ cats. Or one that suggests remnant populations have miraculously survived from thousands of years ago from when panthers naturally lived in our forests.


Howbeit, there’s not really any proof of either of these, and I can’t really get on board with either. Plus, there’re confirmed records of panthers, leopards, and puma being released into the wild after the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, but no evidence for the other theories.


Are the ones released after the Act still here though? Well in captivity, Leopards live for up to 17 years, panthers 20 and pumas up to 19. So, even if pregnant cats were released into the wild, they should've all died off by 1996 at the latest. So, if they do still exist, then the original animals would've had to have had cubs.


Unfortunately, though, there’s no recent concrete photos or videos out there showing big cats (some of you might not be surprised) mainly just fuzzy unfocussed videos, or hikers out in remote locations swearing they “know what they saw”.

Most of our 'evidence' for big cats consist of blurry

pictures on peoples phones like this one.

Where are the Cats being sighted?


These reports come from all over, from the Highlands to Hampshire, but the bulk of sightings come from the South West corner of the UK, with the Forest of Dean, Exmoor and Dartmoor being hotspots. One very concentrated areas is Bodmin Moor. It’s located in the Northeast Cornwall, and over the years has been subject to over 60 alleged sightings of a Black Leopard like cat, which has been dubbed “the beast of Bodmin Moor”. However, these peaked during the 1980s, suggesting that if there was a cat (or cats) there it probably died without breeding, meaning the recent sightings are probably hoaxes.


The Beast of Exmoor is another extremely popular case, arising from black cat sightings in Exmoor National Park, some coming from pretty reliable sources. The local police, big cat keepers at the Exmoor Zoo, and even army marksmen hired to protect locals have all apparently seen “large black pantherine cats”, telling us that if there are cats there, they’re either panthers or leopards.

A magnificent black Panther, do you think 

they'd be obvious if they were on our

small island?

However, Trevor Beer, a naturalist who after (supposedly) tracking a big cat through Exmoor from kills and footprints for weeks, caught a glimpse of what’s believed to be a puma, not a leopard. He described the encounter in his book “The Beast of Exmoor”, and field sketches show quite a short, stocky cat with a round head, reminiscent of a Puma, suggesting that there might be both Pumas and Black Leopards in Exmoor.


Without any concrete evidence in the form of actual photos though, how can we be sure if there are/aren’t large cats out there? Well luckily for us, big cats kill and eat their prey in a very distinctive way. Unlike a dog which’ll normally snap at the legs and back of its prey, most big cats will just lock their jaws around its neck, quickly suffocating and bringing them to the ground. And, it’s no surprise that over the years many sheep kills have been deemed the result of big cats.


Overall, these kills are much more reliable than sightings and dodgy videos, with zoologists, policemen and all sorts of people usually called to the scene to check it out. One remarkable incident happened several years ago in the Welsh county of Carmarthenshire, where not one, two, three, four, five, or six, but seven sheep had been slaughtered overnight. Six of them had been dragged and stuffed underneath a riverbank, while one had already been partly eaten.

Another possible sighting, courtesy of

@highhedgephotography on Instagram 

They’d all been killed the same way: with one lethal bite to the neck, punctures clearly visible where the canines were. After analysis, a conclusion was made that it must’ve been the work of two animals, since on some animals the gaps between the punctures were 5cm, while on the others it was just under 4cm. This could suggest that if they were murdered by cats, one could’ve been a juvenile, with a smaller mouth than the adult it was with.

Pictures like this of supposed panthers could easily

be something like a black fox (below) a rare 

morph of the Red Fox. Or it could just

be a black dog.

As well as bite marks, one sheep even had these huge claw marks down its back, where a cat likely would’ve jumped on it and raked its claws along it to floor it. The marks were very deep, even ripping through the poor animals’ intestines. Furthermore, the seventh sheep which had been partially eaten showed signs that it was again the work of a big cat, with large patches of bone visible, completely devoid of any flesh. This could be the work of a big cat, because on their tongues, they have backward-facing barbs called Papillae, which’re used to groom their kill before they eat it to remove any ticks, fleas, etc. They’re also used to scrape any remnants of skin and flesh from the bones, ensuring nothing’s 
wasted.


There were also the classic sightings of a “large black pantherine cat” again, a few days before, although some could’ve actually been true this time.


Dead cats:


Personally, I think the most convincing evidence that has turned up has got to be the actual bodies of big cats, with ones being found or shot, surprisingly often, such as the mysterious Canadian Lynx that was shot by a hunter in South England in 1902.


The most recent example would be a case that occurred all the way up in Scotland, away from the bulk of the majority of sightings. In September 2012, John Robertson was walking his dog through a rural corner of Cullen, when he came across a clump of mauled seagull remains next to the footpath. Investigating further, (since it was strange seeing so many) he took a detour off the trail, which was when he found it: sprawled on the ground was the shrivelled up, sun-cooked corpse of a large black cat. The flesh on its face had been worn away, exposing its huge, smooth canines and the contorted splinters of bone poking through its tight black skin.

The corpse of the big cat found in Scotland-its size, teeth and skin colour all

showing that it was a juvenile animal, the adults are much larger. To give 

some scale the tail was roughly 18 inches long.

It’s thought that it was the body of a young melanistic (all-black) leopard, after DNA tests were sent off, plus several general observations. The teeth were key in this, as they were pristine compared to those of adults which are normally all grazed and worn. It’s black skin also showed it was a juvenile, since the fully matured adults don’t have this.

While people will argue that even dead bodies can be faked, it is possible for the UK to support these incredible animals. 

We’ve got an abundant food source for them in the form of deer, wild boar and livestock that have no natural predators. Easy prey for something as skilled as a leopard or panther. We’ve also got to remember that while leopards, panthers etc are called ‘big cats’ they seek out cover in the canopy or other high places and normally melt into the background of a shady woodland.

Nobody knows for sure if they’re out there though, and I think there needs to be a thorough search for them, because this could be nothing but hoaxes and public fear. Or, it could be a danger to livestock and also the public. I think we do need to be honest with ourselves too, because we all over dramatizes evidence even when it clearly looks fake, and it is crazily easy to fake sightings and pictures.


I like to believe they're out there, but what is your opinion? Could there really be big cats stalking the shadows of our forests, or could it just be another crazy myth, that should be grouped with Werewolves?