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How to recognise badger hairs

The hairs from the badger's back and flanks are very distinctive and cannot be confused with those from any other British mammal. They are basically white or whitish (or brownish if the sett is in sandy soil and the hairs have become stained), with a black band towards the tip. They are about 7 - 10 cm long; the black band measures 1 - 2 cm and the white tip is also about a centimetre or so in length. The hairs can be straight or quite curly.

Badger hairs are quite coarse, not fine like fox or rabbit hairs. They are also oval in cross section, not round. This means that if you take a badger hair and roll it between your thumb and finger, it does not roll smoothly.

Picture © Steve Jackson. See the Photo File.

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Where to find badger hairs

Badger hairs can often be found stuck in the soil in the spoil heaps outside sett entrances. They can also be found caught in brambles or in the barbs of barbed wire fences, close to the sett or anywhere where badgers have passed through. Once stuck in the soil or caught in a barb, hairs can remain for quite some time and so they are not evidence of current badger activity.

Loose hairs lying on the surface of a spoil heap are another matter however. The fact that they have not been trodden into the heap, or blown or washed away by the wind or rain, shows that they have appeared on the heap quite recently.

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Additional picture credits

The Eurasian badger photo used at the head of this Article is © Steve Jackson. Credits for the photos used in the right-hand margin of this page for site navigation can be found on the Credits page.

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