Our ecology team is currently involved on a project requiring bridge repair works with an active badger sett nearby. Our team is on site working alongside the construction to ensure the wellbeing and safety of local badger populations and the best method in this particular case was to install badger exclusion gates. The European Badger (Meles meles) is one of the most iconic species found in Ireland. This stealthy species spend most of their day underground in their extensive setts and will emerge at dusk to forage.

Although badgers are a protected species under the Wildlife Act, 1976, and the Wildlife Amendment Act, 2000, there are situations where they may need to be temporarily or permanently excluded from their setts for their own protection from necessary construction works or other disturbances. In these circumstances, badger exclusion gates can be installed at entrances allowing badgers to leave the sett safely while preventing them from returning. These badgers will then relocate to a new territory and create a new sett. Once works have been completed, the gates can be removed and the sett is ready to be used again.