What have we been doing?

Thought I would do a quick Blog just to update you some of the things we have done over the last couple of weeks:

RTA's - this time of year there is an uplift in the number of badgers being killed on the roads. We have been logging all reported dead badger notifications we receive. Last week we received notice of 3 dead badgers on a short stretch of road at Bishops Waltham. The person reporting thought they might not be road kill. I went down and checked over the carcases. There were 2 males and 1 female. All 3 were genuine RTA's. The female had been lactating but as the carcase was many days old there was no point trying to find the sett she had come from. If it had been a fresh RTA I would have tried to locate the sett and check for orphaned cubs.

Schools - We have been contacted by 2 local schools. The first wanted to verify if they had a badger sett on site. I visited and checked all the grounds. There was evidence of perhaps an Outlier sett but it looked disused now. The school would be interested in us doing a presentation to some of the pupils.

The other school had a similar query but they want to clear an area of scrub and thought badgers may be living in it. Again I visited and there was signs of badger activity all around the area. They will rethink their plans and accommodate the badgers in what they do. Again they want us to present to the pupils.

MP meeting - We were asked if we wanted to meet with our new MP Alex Brewer. Nick Cole attended an "Environmental Round Table" with Alex and put across our concerns of threats to the badgers. Further involvement will happen on this.

Sett Survey - We did a sett survet at Halls Hill at Buriton on Sunday. A challenging walk to start with! We identified some historical setts, so can update our database.

Farnborough Airfield - there is at least 1 active badger sett on the airfield. I have been trying to get to talk to the responsible environment officer so that we can gain access and monitor the sett. It may be under threat if part of the site is redeveloped.

Woodland near Tadley - we were asked to survey a woodland that is privately owned for signs of badgers before some tree clearing takes place. Nick and I spent 3 hours walking all round the site and found a disused main sett and a disused annex. The owners want on completion of clearing the site to reintroduce badgers to the disused sett. This is a great opportunity for us to rehome any orphaned badgers. This is going to be a long term project and will require careful planning.

On top of all of the above there is the general admin activities that are needed to keep the group running.

Looking ahead we are drawing up plans on how we are going to man our stand at a few events. We have a couple of volunteers but need more, so please if you can spare us some time let us know.

Thanks for reading

Howard