Raplamaa has one of Estonia’s largest badger setts

The Animal of the Year team went to Raplamaa to check one of the largest badger setts in Estonia. It lies on a beautiful sandy ridge where in the 2007.-2008. inventory 89 burrow entrances were found, 75 of which were active. We found that the felling a couple of years ago on the southern side of the sett had disturbed the light conditions of the badgers’ home so that at one edge of the sett there is no activity. A badger does not feel at home in the open, there is too much light for him now. At the other burrow entrances there was however enough life and the structure was  impressive as before. The Raplamaa sett is surely one of the largest badger homes, that can be stated with confidence, although the living places of badgers in all Estonian counties have not been searched out. On average the number of burrow entrances stays at less than 10. In the Raplamaa domicile many families live together and the age of the sett may be several hundred years, maybe even a thousand. This does not of course mean that there has been action at all burrow entrances and that badgers live in all of them – in some raccoon dogs and foxes run in and out. In the next few weeks more can be read about setts in the information material about the animal of the year for schools that we will put up for free use on the home page of the year of the badger.

 

 

Sildid