Volunteers rescue badger after Braintree slurry pit fall

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Katy Prickett

BBC News, Essex

North East Essex Badger Group An adult female badger resting its head on a red and black broom head in a slurry pit full of black sludgy-looking slurry. It is against a wall and its head and torso are above the slurry, so completely covered in black sludge its white stripes cannot be seen. North East Essex Badger Group

An unlucky foraging badger fell into the pit with no way of exiting and was discovered by Anglian Water workers

A badger had to be rescued after it fell into a slurry pit at a sewage works and was unable to escape.

Volunteers from the North East Essex Badger Group were called to the site in the Braintree area at about 08:00 BST on Saturday.

The slurry was so deep the female was unable to stand up and was “slumping down in exhaustion” on their arrival 15 minutes later.

Group chairman Renee Hockley-Byam said it was hauled out with a grasper, “growling and not at all happy” and it “managed to slip out and escape”.

“Ideally, we’d have cleaned it up before we released, but it didn’t want to be cleaned up and off it shot to its sett,” she said.

“Fingers crossed it’s OK.”

North East Essex Badger Group A long shot of an adult female badger resting its head on a red and black broom head in a slurry pit full of black sludgy-looking slurry. It is against a wall and its head and torso are above the slurry, so completely covered in black sludge its white stripes cannot be seen. North East Essex Badger Group

Anglian Water workers put a broom into the pit to give the exhausted animal something to rest its head on before rescue arrived

The sewage works is next to a badger sett and the animals regularly forage for insects in the compound overnight.

Mrs Hockley-Byam said: “It’s not uncommon for badgers to fall into slurry pits, but this is a first for us.

“Most badger groups around the country have dealt with it one time or another – it’s a known hazard.”

The group’s volunteers have previously visited the sewage works to reunite a lost cub with its parents, but “that call-out was a lot less smelly”, she added.

More animals rescued in Essex

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