Noisy nights are sett to continue
19 April 2007 - BBC News
They are neighbours from hell whose nocturnal activities leave a trail of
destruction in the neighbourhood. Holding wild get-togethers they regularly
fight each other and wake neighbours with noisy late-night passionate encounters
outside. Numbering at least 40, they have damaged gardens in Gleadless,
Sheffield - and they are above the law. The culprits are a colony of badgers,
whose protected status means little can be done to stop their antics. Now
residents in the district are at their wits' end after seven years of havoc.
Residents say the badgers are out of control, uprooting fences and trees, one
man even had to demolish £2,000 worth of decking after the badgers dug out the
concrete posts.
Most of all, the fed-up neighbours are complaining about the noise they make,
a high-pitched screaming while mating, a racket keeping humans awake at night.
The fully-grown badgers have even badly damaged a steel wire and metal fence.
Resident Gary Wharton said: "It's my fence that's been brought down, I've had
to put up boards as a temporary measure but there used to be a tree just behind
that fence but they've actually undermined it and ...all my garden, you can see
where it's raised up. The whole tree fell down. You can hear them during the
night, they scream and it's like a high-pitched screech".
He said they were very destructive neighbours and not the sort you would want
living near you. "Well, you don't know until you've got them in your garden and
then you can see the destruction and the damage they've done, it's a bit of a
nightmare."
Wendy Adams, of the
South
Yorkshire Badger Group, said: "We're not without sympathy; the badgers like
living there, so there's obviously a good source of food. We have been down
there several times and issued 100 leaflets giving advice. And we did organise a
meeting ...but nobody turned up. At this time of the year we would not consider
interfering with the sett."
Badgers are a protected species and it is illegal to interfere with their
setts. In extreme circumstances it is possible to get the badgers moved but a
special licence has to be obtained.
For more information, please click the following link:
External News |
We have provided links to stories from external news
organisations so you can follow the media interest in badgers, and see who
writes on the subject. We do not endorse external authors. |
|
|