Badger Trust responds to Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s misleading claims about badgers and wader bird declines.

Badger Trust is deeply concerned by the recent statement from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) claiming that 42% of Curlew and Lapwing nest predation is caused by badgers. This interpretation is both misleading and damaging, and risks fuelling harmful narratives against a legally protected species.

The recent press release by the GWCT and related media headlines give the impression that badgers are now a leading, widespread threat to red-listed waders across Britain. However, the underlying peer-reviewed study is based on just one farmland site and one species (the Northern Lapwing), and shows that even there badger-driven nest losses were minimal (about 6% of nests over six years), and heavily clustered in a single cold, low-earthworm year. In warmer, normal years, badger predation was minimal or absent.

The study’s own findings highlight that predation risk is strongly weather and prey-dependent, not a constant. Accordingly, it seems more scientifically honest to treat badger impacts as an occasional predator, not a major one, and the idea that they are a leading cause of wader declines is not supported by the data.

Conservation strategies should prioritise restoring habitat, boosting invertebrate prey, safeguarding nest-sites (especially in years with cold springs), and research rather than advancing blanket predator-control policies on the basis of a single-site study.

Crucially, the data cited by GWCT comes from sites where other significant known predators, including foxes and corvids, were being actively controlled. Presenting the resulting figures without this context creates an unfair and inaccurate impression that badgers are disproportionately responsible for nest losses. Likewise, the so-called ‘comprehensive’ camera-trap review is limited and uneven in its coverage, creating a sampling bias that likely over-represents certain habitats and exaggerates the apparent role of badgers in wader nest predation.

This risks overshadowing other well-documented factors, such as habitat loss, land-use change, agricultural intensification, drainage, loss of invertebrate prey, nest trampling by livestock, and disturbance. For many wader species, these factors likely remain more pervasive and consistent than episodic badger predation.

Nigel Palmer, Chief Executive of Badger Trust, said

“It is wrong to sensationalise selective bits of information. Such narratives can fuel a harmful cycle of persecution against badgers, and they distract from the real drivers of biodiversity loss.

Many species have always preyed on the eggs of ground-nesting birds. Focusing on badgers while ignoring wider ecological pressures is neither honest nor helpful.

The truth is that our upland landscapes are severely degraded. Decades of intensive land management, much of it geared towards monocultures on shooting estates, have stripped away the rich mosaic of habitats that waders and countless other species depend on."

Badger Trust warns that the push for a general licence to “manage” badgers reflects an outdated, lethal-control mindset that prioritises eliminating perceived threats. It diverts the balance. This approach ignores the success of well-tested, non-lethal measures, such as temporary exclusion fencing, which organisations like the RSPB already use effectively to protect vulnerable nests.

Blaming the decline of Curlew, Lapwing, and even hedgehogs on badgers alone misrepresents the evidence and diverts attention from the real, human-driven issues: habitat loss, drainage, reduced invertebrate abundance, and the lasting effects of land-use intensification.

Badger Trust urges GWCT to direct its considerable influence and resources toward the genuine causes of wader declines. Restoring healthy, nature-rich upland habitats would benefit all wildlife, including ground-nesting birds, far more than promoting predator scapegoating.

Nigel Palmer added:

“If we truly want to safeguard threatened species, we must address the degraded state of our uplands. Real conservation means habitat restoration, not blaming one protected mammal for complex problems we created. By doing so, we can support genuine conservation efforts that demonstrate a commitment to biodiversity and ecological integrity.”