The European badger is a stocky, powerful digger and one of Europe’s best-known mammals. Living in family groups called clans, it spends the day underground and emerges at dusk to forage.
Interesting facts
- A badger can eat hundreds of earthworms in a single night.
- Its black-and-white striped face makes it easy to recognise.
- Badgers regularly change their bedding, dragging fresh grass and leaves into the sett.
- They dig communal toilets, called latrines, at the edges of their territories.
- Females can delay the implantation of fertilised eggs for months.
- Badger culling to control bovine tuberculosis in cattle has been controversial in the UK.
Behaviour
Badgers are nocturnal and social, sharing setts with their clan. They groom each other and mark each other with scent to maintain group bonds.
Breeding and young
Mating can happen at almost any time of year, but cubs, usually two or three, are born underground in late winter. They first emerge in spring.
Threats and conservation
Road deaths, culling, illegal persecution such as badger baiting, and habitat loss.
Where to see it
- Badger-watching hides in the UK, such as in the Forest of Dean
- Woodlands and farmland across Britain and Ireland at dusk
- Białowieża Forest, Poland
- Forests of Germany and France
Status source: IUCN Red List. Profile last reviewed September 2026.
