Golf Courses and Parks

RSPB Spotlight on Badgers book
James Lowen explores the lives of badgers and their communal living, feeding habits and threats to their conservation. Click here to buy: Paperback edition Kindle edition

Golf Courses, Putting Greens and Parks can provide vital feeding and foraging grounds for badgers. The short-cropped grass on the greens can be very rich in earthworms (a favourite food), but this can lead to problems with badgers digging. Fairways can also be useful feeding areas too - both for worms, and for other species, like baby rabbits and mice.

Bunkers, being full of soft sand may be useful as dung pits; although badgers will tend to leave well-defined footprints in the sand, so it will be easy to identify whether they are the real culprits here.

Occasional ponds and streams can also provide badgers with additional snack food (like frogs), and useful water sources in hot dry weather.

That said, badgers may have a tendency to cause damage by digging or snuffling for worms; and leaving unsightly or unpleasant droppings. Newly laid turf and turf which is not properly bound to the underlying soil structure may be ripped up to get at earthworms or ground beetles.

Getting rid of the badgers altogether would require a licence from English Nature; and this is not likely to be given unless the damage caused is of a serious nature (such as undermining buildings or roads). The best solution may be to consult with your local Badger Group or Badger Consultant. See the note below about the use of the Renardine animal deterrent.

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