Nature features

After a spell of dry weather in August 2003 the badgers of Wytham Woods were finding it difficult to find food.

The badger's staple diet is earthworms, which become more difficult to find in the dry ground.

This means that there wasn’t enough food for the young badgers. And badger census at the woods revealed that the numbers were at an all time low.

Dr Chris Newman, mammal monitoring co-ordinator with the university's wildlife conservation research unit;

"There are still a good number of healthy breeding animals now, but the difficulties could arise in four or five years time when these cubs grow up and there is a reduced breeding population."

If you'd like to get involved in the Mammal Monitoring work in Wytham Woods, Earthwatch help the with vital environmental research as part of their discovery projects, you can find out more details on their website.