Hi Snufflewoofs,
I like you am starting to worry. Although I haven’t heard any badger attacks, I occasionally see the odd victim on the roads around the village so I know that they are close by and we are only about a quarter of a mile away from open fields. Six of our regular hogs with names have gone missing over the last 4 to 6 weeks. Five of the hogs were boys and I know it’s possible that they have all wandered off further afield in search of the ladies, but they all vanished around the same time. Previous to this they would all be picked up on camera every night, I have only noticed one casualty on the roads nearby, but none of them have been seen since! We still have around six hogs visiting including three juveniles, one of which is an extra one that I brought back from our local rescue or a B.O.G.O.F. as Lynda the carer put it! Thankfully, the two rescued juveniles Nagini and Ben seem to hang around for most of the night so don’t venture too far afield and the garden is most definitely badger proof.
I have a friend in a nearby village that used to feed hedgehogs and foxes, but hasn’t seen any since their camera recorded a badger killing a hedgehog over a year ago. I have seen many dead badgers on the main roads around our local town three miles away, it used to be a rarity, but now it is commonplace. Whenever I have visited our hedgehog friendly vets with an injured hog, people from the town have taken a keen interest in my prickly patients. All of them have commented on how they used to regularly see or feed hedgehogs, but haven’t seen any for a couple of years or so. If you think about it, it would only take one rogue badger that developed a taste for hedgehog to decimate an entire local population…it really is becoming quite a concern. 🙁
