Last year, Protect the Wild readers helped an East Sussex community to save badgers whose home was at threat from property developers. We’ve revisited the residents to see how the badgers are doing. And it’s great news: they are thriving!
For four and a half years, the community was trying to buy a plot – home not only to badgers, but foxes and slow worms too – which sits between their houses. The neighbours were running out of time to protect the land from being auctioned off to developers. Protect the Wild supporters’ donations were vital in helping the community to purchase the land and save the badgers.
Resident Debbie Julians told us how the community has been hard at work, restoring the land to be a haven for wildlife. She also shared CCTV videos of the badgers, including footage of a badger being nudged by another and tumbling backwards into his own hole (two minutes into the video)!
Debbie said of the below clip:
“The first cub on the left pushes his sibling back down the badger hole with a slight nudge with the rear right leg. The other cub comes back up – there’s bewilderment from both cubs! A little more rough and tumble – then oops! Fall into the water! Then they think, “oh that’s a good idea, let’s have some water.” The mum just looks on.”
Wildlife sanctuary
The plot was in a bad state when they purchased it, and being used for fly-tipping. Debbie told us the steps the residents took to give local wildlife a fighting chance. She said:
“Before doing any work on the land, we gathered as much advice from nature specialists as possible. We tried to work around the parameters of the bird season and other wildlife seasons.”
The residents applied for small lottery funding and were successful. This enabled them to pay for skips, the clearance of rubbish, and the materials needed to build gates.
Debbie continued:
“The volunteers who were able to cleared the rubbish. We had to clear years and years of fly tipping that people had dumped over the fence. I found disabled hand rails with concrete ends on them, glass, tyres, drums of oil. Everything that was bad for wildlife. We thought that the land had natural hills, but it was actually piles of dumped rubbish embedded into the ground! Everything from dolls to garden furniture, wrapped in plastic bags with soil on top of it. It had built up and we had to dig it out. We were digging with our hands. We took out more than three skipfuls by wheelbarrows, and then we levelled it. We flattened it out with rakes.
We fell down more badger holes than we care to mention! It has been very, very funny. We made sure that we always had phones on us for safety reasons. This land could never be open to the public because one disappears down a hole all the time!
In amongst all the rubbish I did find a slow worm and I gently picked her up and put her in an area that was safe. Amongst all of this was this beautiful slow worm!
The work had to be done by hand – it couldn’t be done any other way. What is lovely is that the sow (the adult female badger) dug out her nursery set there. She chose that area.”
Debbie continued:
“We took away some of the brambles and this is where a new set – or it could be another nursery set – has appeared. Once we did that we left it and let nature take its course. I took away some of the grass and in our videos that’s where you see the mum using the grass and taking that back into the set.
We’ve left a huge area of the brambles. We took away a lot of bindweed from the sycamore tree and the elderflower tree because the bindweed and brambles fight for their light. Hopefully everything is equal out there. Now there are lovely wildflowers that have come through too.”
The community erected gates, allowing gaps at the bottom for badger walkways. They put up CCTV cameras for the badgers’ safety.
Debbie described the below badger clip. She said:
“The mother is collecting grass, while the cubs are playing around her – checking out the smells in the air and the water, which was put out by the community in the hot weather.”
Badgers, foxes, field mice, bees
Debbie told us that the residents still don’t know exactly how many badgers there are.
She said:
“Near the sycamore tree – where the bramble is – that’s where the main set is. They’re really big holes, and a real throroughfare. There’s a lot of badgers. Then there’s the nursery sets where the sows come away from the main set and have their cubs. The main fox family is up the top of the field. Another member keeps an eye on that family of foxes. And then we have a fox with a white tail who comes in as a visitor to look around.
There’s plenty of field mice, beautiful bird songs, bees, and there’s a bird of prey who frequently sweeps over. I’m ever hopeful for an owl in our now-protected and safe sycamore tree that blows in the wind like a Grand Lady.”
‘What an achievement’
Debbie doesn’t want to give the impression that this was an easy project. It took years of trying to raise funding, setting up a Community Interest Company, and then months of restoring the land. She said:
“I must say it hasn’t been easy and not plain sailing, and there’s been differences of opinion. It’s had its challenges! It’s work in progress and always will be. But overall, what an achievement. What a celebration. Just look at those cubs – it says it all: even they are jumping for joy!
Even on your lowest day, all you need to do is look at those videos of the badgers! We think we saved them, but I think they saved us.”
