Expensive Railway Sleeper Homes for Badgers
08 July 2013
£300 million project includes special badger homes from Railway Sleepers.
THOUSANDS of pounds will be spent relocating hundreds of residents living in the path of the new Borders Railway and building new homes from railway sleepers. Several badger setts have been identified by wildlife experts along the 35-mile route and a £10,000 pot has been set aside to provide the nocturnal hunters with alternative accommodation due to the threat the works pose to their habitat. Artificial badger homes are to be created in order to move them to safety.
A full-time badger expert has now been drafted in to oversee the project which will see identical but roomier setts, comprising numerous chambers and tunnels, constructed from railway sleepers & pipes and then covered in soil up to a metre deep to hide them from view. Tasty treats will be used to encourage the animals to visit the new setts, and once the entire clan has moved in access to their previous home will be blocked.
SNH licensing manager Ben Ross said: “Each sett can vary in size and the number of badgers it contains so depending on factors such as these, each artificial sett could cost between £200-£300 and £1000 to construct. Relocations such as this are quite common when large capital projects are being built. It basically involves digging a large hole and then constructing a series of tunnels and chambers using railway sleepers and large pipes. Badgers are creatures of habit and use the same paths to get about at night so the likelihood is that if you build a new sett, they will inevitably investigate it. You’d think that they would reject the idea and look to return to their own original sett, but if the sett is built correctly and offers more room, then the badgers seem very happy to take up residence.
Under laws protecting badgers, work cannot be carried out within 30 metres of a known sett and approval has to be gained from SNH for its removal. The £300 million scheme is the largest rail reopening project in modern UK history and the line is due to open in summer 2015.