A badger has torn up a bit of the turf of our lawn, presumably to feed on invertebrates that live below the grass roots. It's a bit of a nuisance since some of the smaller sods have been strewn over the garden path & it looks untidy. However the area is over a drainage soakaway, which isn't big enough to cope with continuous heavy rain, and the grass is struggling, to put it mildly. Since lawn management is more about encouraging benign weeds like dog violets, rather than relatives of dandelions, I'm not too upset about the damage.
Last winter, father-in-law had similar, but much worse, damage. There were clear claw grooves in the soil under the edges of the torn-up turf. I suspected badger, but after seeing easily identifiable footprints with long claw marks in soft soil at Earlswwod Moathouse late last year, am now pretty confident.
However I'm troubled by the implications.
We live a mile or so away from the green belt. The first couple of miles of green belt beyond is horse pasture rather than cattle grazing land. I'm not aware of any connection between bovine TB & horses, so conclude that the badgers have been persuaded to forage far away from their setts by livestock farmers. F-i-l is probably further away from productive farmland than we are. Neither area is part of any authorised badger culling area AFIAK. So what's going on?
We've already lost our hedgehogs. That happened several years ago. I'm well aware that badgers eat hedgehogs. Current attempts to re-introduce hedgehogs into our suburbia look as hopeless as trying to encourage water voles in waterways infested by feral mink (animal rights activists?).
