Badger

Not to be confused with

• Red fox — Both are dog-sized and nocturnal, and both dig lawns. Everything else separates them: a badger is low, broad and grey with a black-and-white striped face and a stumpy tail, while a fox is rangy, russet and carries a long bushy brush. The digging differs too — badger snuffle holes are small, neat cones scattered across turf; fox digging is scrappier and often a single hole with soil thrown back. Badger or Red fox?
• Badger sett vs fox earth — Worth knowing before you assume which animal is under the shed, because the legal consequences differ enormously. A sett has several large, D-shaped entrances at least 25cm across, huge spoil heaps, well-worn paths between them, and discarded dry grass and leaf bedding at the mouth. A fox earth is usually a single rounder hole, often smelly, with food remains scattered nearby and no bedding.

The sett is the legal line

Most people know it is illegal to harm a badger. Far fewer know that the sett is protected more broadly than the animal, and that is where gardeners get into trouble. Section 1 of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 makes it an offence to wilfully kill, injure or take a badger. Section 3 goes further: it is an offence to damage or destroy a sett, to obstruct access to or any entrance of a sett, to cause a dog to enter one, or to disturb a badger occupying one — and, critically, the offence is committed by someone "intending to do any of those things or being reckless as to whether his actions would have any of those consequences". Recklessness is enough. Blocking a hole under a shed, running a digger over a bank, laying foundations or stacking hardcore over an entrance can all qualify. If you think there is a sett on or beside your property, stop and take advice from the statutory nature conservation body before any groundwork.

Reading the damage

Badger damage in a garden is distinctive and usually tells you exactly what happened. Shallow conical holes scattered across a lawn, each a few centimetres across, are snuffle holes: the badger is following earthworms, which come to the surface in mild damp weather, and the Wildlife Trusts note a badger can eat several hundred worms in a night. Turf rolled back in strips is a different problem and means chafer grubs or leatherjackets underneath — the badger is a symptom. Gaps punched under fences at the same spot every time mark a route that predates your fence; badgers follow fixed paths through a landscape and will simply keep using them. Windfall fruit disappearing overnight, sweetcorn flattened, and strawberries taken just before you were going to pick them are all badger signatures. So is a strong musky smell near a dug hole. None of it is malice and none of it is personal.

Living with one, practically

You have two workable options and one that is not worth attempting. The first is to accept the route: if badgers are crossing your garden, a gate or gap they can use causes far less damage than a fence they have to break, and it puts the wear in a place you choose. The second is to protect specific things rather than the whole garden — a fruit cage with a properly buried skirt, raised beds, netting pegged down hard. Electric fencing is used for this, though it needs setting up properly and is a commitment. What is not worth attempting is a general deterrent. Badgers are strong, heavy and determined; chemical repellents are largely useless and some of what gets recommended online risks an offence under the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996. Removing an animal achieves nothing either, because the territory is not left vacant. Do not attempt to block, trap, move or deter a badger yourself — where there is a genuine conflict, the route is licensed advice from the statutory agency.

Plant this for it

• appleWindfall apples are taken enthusiastically in autumn, and unsprayed grass and leaf litter under a fruit tree supports the earthworm population that makes up most of a badger's diet.

How we checked this

• The Wildlife Trusts: Badger
• Protection of Badgers Act 1992, section 1
• Protection of Badgers Act 1992, section 3
• Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996, section 1

Checked against the sources above. Reviewed on 2026-09-20. Legal position checked 2026-09-20.