Video shows that badgers can climb electric fences

A video of a badger scaling a predator fence has sparked criticism of the RSPB. The film, which shows a badger easily climbing an overhanging 8ft fence topped with rolls of razor wire, has drawn outrage from the Campaign for the Protection of Moorland Communities (C4PMC), a group dedicated to protecting moorland communities and driven grouse shooting. C4PMC has said the video “reinforces the ineffectiveness of the RSPB’s electric predator fences”. Although the fence in the video was not on an RSPB reserve, in May it was reported that an entire avocet colony at RSPB’s Burton Mere Wetlands had been wiped out after being predated — probably by a badger — despite “expensively installed electric fences”. 

C4PMC claims that RSPB fences cost upwards of £20,000 to install and says this video “raises questions on why no one at the charity [RSPB] is learning from their mistakes and continuing to spend vast amounts of charitable funds on fences which don’t work”. 

In 2021, police investigated the RSPB after one of its manuals advised staff to bait fences with honey to give badgers an electric shock. The Predator Exclusion Fence Manual is no longer available on the RSPB’s website.