Badgers would have suffocated in a sett deliberately blocked by boulders, one of Scotland’s top experts on the animals has said.
John Mitchell said the badgers’ home had been “destroyed” by the actions of Peter Brown at Ingrie Farm, near Leslie, just weeks after his family purchased the land.
Brown, from Strathore, said he had worked on the area with a digger but had not realised he was disturbing the burrowing creatures.
He stood trial on charges of breaching wildlife legislation and was found guilty.
The 32-year-old levelled the sett with an excavator and placed a boulder at the entrance.
Fear for badgers
Mr Mitchell founded Fife and Kinross Badger Protection Group in the 70s and now carries out expert environmental surveys, including for several public bodies.
He told Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court the ground containing the sett had been disturbed and in his view the act was deliberate.
Mr Mitchell said he had been to the site on “two or three” previous occasions and it was “a normal active badger sett” with evidence of breeding activity.
He received a worried phone call from a friend who regularly walked in the area so visited along with a police wildlife officer.
He said: “Some of the entrances had been blocked off, with boulders put into the entrances.
“The only bit (of the banking) that had been touched was the badger sett.
“They had not only been blocked but they (the boulders) had been put into the entrance of the sett, which could not have been a coincidence.
“It was a deliberate act, without a doubt.”
Mr Mitchell said it took the combined effort of himself, his friend and the wildlife officer to remove one of the boulders from the opening.
Asked what the effect of blocking all the entrances might have been, he replied: “It would have had the effect of suffocating the animals underground.”
Asked if there was a chance the stone could have rolled into position accidentally, he replied “no”.
Mr Mitchell said several “spoil heaps”, caused by the badgers repeatedly cleaning out their den, had been flattened, with marks in the ground indicating this had been done with the bucket of a digger.
The court heard the badgers appear to have survived the damage to their sett and continue to live in the area.
Denied deliberately trying to harm animals
Brown told the court he was using the digger to clear rocks from a field and had dumped them in the field margins.
While he admitted damaging the sett, he said he was unaware it was there and he had never seen a badgers’ sett, nor knew what one looked like.
He said an area of dirt – which turned out to be a spoil heap from the sett – was cutting into the field boundary and he was just attempting to maintain it.
He said: “It was encroaching on the field and looked like a lump of straw.
“So I took it back to the field boundary.
“I didn’t know it was a badger sett because I’ve never come across one in my life.
“I thought it was maybe a half bale of straw and I dragged it out towards the field.”
He said: “They (the badgers) weren’t doing any harm where they are.
“If they were a problem we would have called the right people.”
He said he had briefly inspected the area but would have been more careful had he known it was a badger sett.
He denied a suggestion from fiscal depute Karon Rollo he had destroyed the sett because it was an inconvenience to the farm business.
Reckless
However Sheriff Elizabeth McFarlane deemed he had been reckless, as he ought to have realised that the spoil heaps may have indicated the presence of protected wildlife.
Brown, of Skeddoway Farm, Strathore, was found guilty of damaging the badger sett, and to obstructing its entrances, on April 4 last year.
Sheriff McFarlane fined him £2,000.
It is an offence under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 to interfere with the animals or their homes.
The maximum penalty for the offence of interfering with a sett is a fine of up to £40,000 or up to 12 months in prison.
Crown welcomes conviction
Speaking after the sentencing, Deborah Carroll, Assistant Procurator Fiscal, Specialist Casework said: “Peter Brown’s actions were deliberate and carried out with a reckless disregard for the consequences they could have for a protected species.
“The law protects badgers from harm and COPFS will continue to work to ensure anyone who breaks the law faces prosecutorial action.”
