Four hits on a poultry unit by two bagers over the last 7 days = 237 dead birds. Granted the birds are locked up at the moment because of bird flu, Mr Brock just digs straight under the aprons and he's in the movable sheds.
They’re normally rather well built, but industrious with it, judging by their extensive sett excavations.
), but after the summer the fox cubs tend to go forth and disperse, and try to find a territory to call their own, whereas by and large the badgers are content to continue to stay in the area playing happy families, leading to building up of the population density rather than wider overall distribution.
In the past years we’ve twice had occasion to chase Bill down the large wooded hen run making away with our laying hens, and lost several to him over the years on occasions when the electric energiser was inadvertently turned off or had developed a fault. Opportunistic, as before. Persistent, too.
They’re normally rather well built, but industrious with it, judging by their extensive sett excavations.
They've been known to be very tenacious per your own contradictory example (very very lazy, but coursing a hare like a dog) - they’ve been seen seen following the milk scent from a lactating hare back to the leveret, for that leisurely lazy supper.
Opportunistic might be a more apt description?
For certain a pair of foxes can have a large family, and occasionally a couple of litters from different families will be raised in a den ( or an abandoned badger sett, for example
Regional variations will doubtless apply.
You are also in the position of having authorities who are basically relaxed about the situation; here in rural, semi-agricultural Scotland there are so comparatively few within any community who are actively trying to make a difference (1:10) that where any weight of ground nesting bird brood rearing success may draw immediate suspicion by those monitoring such matters as to how this can be given typical densities of 20-60 badgers per sq km… it’s the conservation paradox, Scottish style - everyone knows the nature of the problem, and also privately agree what should be done to counter it, but when there is sufficient treachery that any practitioner caught or filmed trying to redress the balance faces either a custodial sentence and loss of firearms etc, then the majority of those few aware of the imbalance and are in a position to contribute positively are generally more cautious and prefer to await the day when legal means of addressing the issue are made available as opposed to risking everything that has already befallen some - and we aren’t holding our breath on that ‘legal means’ aspect.
I had a juvenile in a live catch rabbit trap, it looked like a cuboid badger, still don't know how it managed to fit in, still don't know how I released it with losing a finger
I went to a fox trap once and a badger had ripped the bait flap clean off and escaped through the tiny hole
Same
I don’t dislike badgers at all - they are great things to watch and are just doing what comes naturally. It’s the lefty green idiots I hate that have prevented control and ended up with a population explosion that has meant I have not seen a hedgehog or covey of partridges in my area for years.
Yes, sorry.
