Praise and thanks to those good souls who rescue injured or sick wild animals, nurse them back to health, and release them to take their place in natural surroundings again. Badgers many people see only when dead at the roadside or flattened on the highway. One of these rehabilitators writes in the current BBC Wildlife magazine, that, though there are success stories to date, the path has not been easy. Badgers are specially difficult, partly because they live in well-defined groups in distinct territories and may not welcome any newcomers. Those who care for badgers injured in, say, road traffic or even suffering wounds inflicted by other badgers in territorial or hierarchical clashes, are looked after, writes Colin Seddon, as well as some shot or snared or even poisoned. Normally these good people try to return them to the point of capture, where the animals would be in familiar territory. But now they are questioning this. He instances two badgers brought in 1998 to be treated for fight wounds. After being released, both were returned, suffering even more severe wounds. There came a second release, far from the original site. Later both were found with such severe damage that they had to be put down. A precaution can be the fitting of a radio tracking device, for example. One station is at West Hatch, Taunton, Somerset.
Another group, Secret World, Highbridge, Somerset, deals in abandoned cubs as a speciality. They have rehabilitated forty this year. These need to be released into land which has no badgers, having no territory of their own to return to. They are kept in 30-metre square enclosures where they learn to dig and forage.
A badger was found in a sack for the awful practice of badger-baiting. Shortly after, she produced three cubs, later four were added to her family and she took them on. Later all were released together; "One of our real success stories." A deserted sett is ideal for such released animals but even a temporary sett of wood or straw, experts say, will do until they dig their own. Blood tests are done and only TB-free attested badgers are admitted to TBfree areas. Other conditions and caveats, too. West Hatch now has 23 animals awaiting release. Last thought. Has any case been proved in this State where TB in cattle does not, even after decades of our bovine TB legislation, originate not with badgers or the birds of the air, but with bad farming procedures or dodginess of one sort or another?