Badgers
I was lucky to be able to spend six years studying and getting to know a social group of badgers. The picture on the Wildlife home page is of Fern and two of her cubs. The lighter one is an erythristic cub, not an albino, you can see the strips and the eyes were brown, not pink as in an albino. I had read about erythristic badgers but never though I would get to see one so you can imagine my surprise and delight when the first badger I saw at my study group was erythristic. Fern in fact had three cubs when the picture was taken, the one missing from the photograph was also erythristic. What made the fact that two such cubs were born in that year so wonderful was that I knew I was moving to another part of the country to live, so it seemed very fitting that I should start and end with erythristics in the group.
A poor image but taken before I acquired a
good camera
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Katie lost her mum when she was still too young to care for herself.
She was found wandering around during daylight and
reported to the RSPCA. We took care of her for five days
in our badger proof unit. Once she had regained some
weight and was less stressed we took her to a sanctury in
Someset which specialises in caring for badgers. Katie
was released into the wild with a group of orphaned cubs
in the autumn of the same year.
Petra
was hit by a car in Bedfordshire. Lucklily for Petra,
a car which came along
the road shortly after was being driven by an off duty
member of the RSPCA. Petra was taken to a vet for
treatment and then delievered to us so that she could
recover from her accident. We released Petra back to the
place she was found three days later.
A very laid back Petra |
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