ESL - Ecological ServicesInitial walkover surveys on the land which would one day be Cambourne new town found many signs of badger presence. Follow-up surveys included extensive bait-marking (Stage 3) studies, initially over just the site itself, but eventually extending to a 2-3km buffer zone around the settlement (where access allowed). This part of the country has a dense badger population, and this extended study area allowed the effect on badger social groups over this distance to be monitored.
Badgers are territorial animals and use their dung as a means of communication, so their dung pits and latrine sites (clusters of dung pits) are often found along well-used paths and around the boundaries of their territory. The survey involves feeding the badgers coloured plastic markers, using a different colour for each active sett, in a matrix of suitable food. (Careful study over the years has shown that the Cambourne badgers preferred food is a mixture of peanuts and sweet, seedless jam, although golden syrup and oatmeal also go down well.) On following mornings all the known dung-pits are searched for the coloured markers, whose dispersal is then carefully mapped.
Stage 3 survey before building began showed that the site was used by three different social groups. Since an early decision had been to retain all existing biodiversity throughout the build, the settlement design provided space for these groups and the Cambourne Action Plan included prescriptions for continual monitoring of the badger population, and for habitat management and intervention measures as necessary. Since development began, Stage 2 surveys have been carried out 4-5 times each year, with a Stage 3 survey every spring.
The maps opposite demonstrate the effect on local social groups as construction progressed.
Before work began, two social groups, blue and yellow (so called for the colour of markers originally used at these main setts), foraged over most of the site and effectively divided it between them, although most activity was found closest to their setts. Construction activity began along the northern edge, with access roads then moving down to the centre of the site, where the first compounds etc were located. At this point badger activity showed little change, although there was some small tendency to pull back from this central axis.
Following this establishment phase, work began on the service infrastructure with human activity relatively light but widespread over the northern and western parts of the site. Blue social group appeared to respond by moving their foraging away from these areas, allowing orange social group from the south to expand their foraging onto the southern part of the site.
With the infrastructure in place, house-building began, and it was noticeable that the badgers largely avoided the currently active areas. As building has been completed however, signs of badger foraging have begun to appear along the greenways and open spaces and as the new woods, lakes and grasslands mature, surveys indicate that they are moving back into their old haunts.
A separate finding shown by these surveys is the splitting of social groups, seen particularly on the southern border. Although not shown, there is also some evidence that social groups may reverse these splits and merge again, and the situation within the yellow social group territory has been similarly dynamic for several years. This group has had several breeding setts at different times, and bait-marking of each breeding sett separately has demonstrated how the families occupying them appear to divide the wider foraging territory between them for a time.
It is also of interest that despite their internal changes, the surrounding social groups appear to have maintained their foraging territories throughout, and have not been displaced as a result of Cambourne’s construction.
Ongoing-monitoring is demonstrating the resilience of the resident badgers, and the success of measures planned and taken to ensure that the main setts were retained and protected from disturbance, and that sufficient foraging ground was available to every group throughout the build. Where necessary the spoil-deposition and landscape phasing were adjusted to provide this. The site population remains healthy and appears to have successfully adjusted to living with close human neighbours.
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