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Tuesday
13th May 2003
Five attacked by rogue badger |
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| Badger |
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After
a badger attacks five people in Worcestershire we look in detail at
this creatures habitat. |
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Five
people have been treated in hospital after being attacked by a rogue
badger in Worcestershire.
The animal went on the rampage last Thursday and Friday in the Green
Hill area of Evesham.
I've been involved with badgers for 24 years and I've never
heard of anything like this |
| Mike
Weaver: Worcester Badger Society |
Pam Fitzgerald's
husband is still in hospital in Birmingham this week: he will have
to have skin grafts on his hands and legs.
Mike Weaver from the Worcester Badger Society says the animal went
on to attack other people before it was finally destroyed. He says
that in more than 20 years he has never known a wild badger to attack
people. He thinks this badger didn't grow up in the wild but was reared
by people.
The nearby Vale Wildlife centre have told BBC Hereford and Worcester
that they believe the badger may have been one of theirs that has
been hand reared from birth.
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BADGER
FACTFILE
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Badgers
can live for up to 14 years. |
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can grow up to 80cm in length and weigh 8-12 kilogrammes. |
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usually feed
on earthworms, frogs, rodents, birds, eggs, lizards, insects,
bulbs, seeds and berries. |
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| They
generally prefer forest and grassland. |
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| They
are nocturnal and emerge from their setts at dusk. They live
in family groups, or clans, of up to 12 individuals, which occupy
a shared territory of 125-375 acres. The boundaries of the territories
are marked out with odour and defended. Badgers inhabit underground
burrows called setts which consist of several chambers, passages
and entrances and are used by successive generations of badgers.
Nesting material is often carried out of the sett in the day
and aired in the sunshine. They are gregarious and will indulge
in playful romping. |
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| Badgers
are not considered endangered but numbers have been depleted.
They are protected under various wildlife acts and UK law states
that it is an offence to kill, injure or capture a badger, or
to interfere with its sett. It is estimated that 50,000 badgers
meet their deaths in Britain through road traffic accidents
every year. Badgers are hunted legally and illegally in many
of the countries they inhabit. The Department for Food, Environment
and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) are in the process of carrying out
a massive cull, killing 20,000 badgers (under licence), to establish
whether they spread bovine TB in cattle. |
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Film
of a badger (56k) |
Interview
with witness |
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