Dead Badgers

[speckled wood]

I am still surprised at the number of dead badgers I find, seemingly road accident victims, what interests me is that so often that these finds will occur along the same road on the same day suggesting to me that they have been dumped rather than killed on the road.

I worked on the railway for many years and of interest were the number of dead badgers seen near private crossing or adjacent to bridges and in exactly the place that they would been found had they beeen dropped off the bridge onto the track. Interestingly I saw few dead foxes in such places .... indeed very few dead foxes.

[eeyore]

If you are not too squeamish to examine the corpses - wearing gloves and taking appropriate care of the traffic you can tell whether they are roadkill or dumped baitin victims . Roadkill will either have broken necks, flailed chests (that is smashed ribs), or appear unharmed (but dead from internal bleeding). Baiting victims will have bite marks and quite possibly knife wounds to the chest and or gunshots to the head where they were finished off. They may also have been hamstrung on the back legs to give to dogs an "equal chance", oooooooooooooo oooooooooooooo

If you find baited victims let your rspca, police wlo and local badger group know straight away

[Dipper]

Another thought is that badgers will often follow linear features, such as hedgerows, fences, etc between foraging areas/setts. If there are linear features leading up to these crossings this might be the cause. Badgers are creatures of habit and will follow their pathways religiously. I used to live close to a disused railway line that crossed a B road and this was a frequent death trap for badgers.

However, I am only offering this as a suggestion. It is important to check for signs of persecution as badgers are an emotive subject at the moment with the debate over the scientific (sic) badger cull and are more likely to suffer persecution from farmers/landowners.

Also look for signs of snaring... deep cuts circling limbs/torso/neck areas. Its illegal to set snares where a protected species could be caught, so any offenders will be eager to remove the evidence.

Good luck!

[digi]

I have mentioned this before on another thread, I think they are being killed and left at the roadside to make believe it was a road kill.

[matt_xyz]

Sadly, I have a feeling Pete is on the right lines here. It appears baiting is rife (there was a BBC Wildlife Magazine article about it a couple of months ago) and the corpses are often disposed of in a manner doesn't arouse suspicion i.e. by passing them off as roadkill.

I think there is also likely to be some truth to the claim that badgers follow certain paths which may partially explain why roadkill deaths appear in the same places.

Matt

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

Thats right Matt, near to my work along a country road there are often dead Badger, you can see the tracks down the side of the bank, so obviously these are actual road kills

One of my friends who is into shooting was insvolved in getting some badger baiters prosecuted and jailed near to him, and was thanked by the local police one night in the pub, the policeman walked in and said at the top of his voice "can i get you a drink supergrass" he was fuming, makes you wonder why you bother sometimes

[Mr Mag00]

my limited amount of personal investigations including personal communications with farmers and stalkers/shooters and looking at corpses have highlighted that 95% of dead badgers are victims of shooting or baiting and poisoning. Road kill victims tend to have blood in the vicinty if killed outright and tyre skidmarks nearby. Injured animals will crawl away, this unlawful culling is an ever increasing epidemic.

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by matt_xyz

Sadly, I have a feeling Pete is on the right lines here. It appears baiting is rife (there was a BBC Wildlife Magazine article about it a couple of months ago) and the corpses are often disposed of in a manner doesn't arouse suspicion i.e. by passing them off as roadkill.

I think there is also likely to be some truth to the claim that badgers follow certain paths which may partially explain why roadkill deaths appear in the same places.

Matt

When the Tonbridge to Hastings railway was electrified (on the third rail system) some 20 years ago a number of Badgers were electrocuted, a solution was found by laying "underpass" pipe at known badger crossing points and this resulted in a reduction in the number of badgers killed. I understand that this method has also been used on roads with some success.

Interestingly back on the railway I remember several places where there were Fox Earths and Badger Setts (with animals seen to be using and rearing young) on the lineside right besides the tracks and yet there there never seemed to be any animals killed at these locations

[nightshade]

I was told some time ago that Badgers were being killed and thrown"over the hedge"
for traffic to dispose of the evidence
I also encounter them regularly at several places were they have always crossed the
road but cannot take into account the increased volume and speed of traffic,
many of the dead (roadkill)animals are youngsters

[Alan]

All of the above points are very valid so I wont add to them. What I will say though, is if I were in the shoes of a badger baiter, I wouldn't go willy nilly dropping badger carcasses on the roads, which many are often checked and reported and sometimes removed. I wouldn't bring attention to possible baiting activities in an area by doing this. I'd just simply bury the carcass and be done with it!

Having said that, this of course doesn't take into account the mental condition of baiters, so I'm sure there could be a mixture of both!