Why Irish badgers eat few worms

THERE ARE few certainties in life and even fewer when it comes to wildlife. Badgers in Britain live mainly on worms.

We were sure that Irish ones also ate worms but nobody thought of checking to see if this is actually the case. Now, some ground-breaking research by Gráinne Cleary, at Trinity College in Dublin, has turned our ideas about badger diet on their heads. Irish badgers don’t eat that many worms.

Badgers are opportunistic feeders, eating anything which happens to be available, from berries to bulbs and baby birds. Even hedgehogs, with their armour of sharp spines, are not safe from the badger’s powerful jaws; curling up in a ball is no defence when Broc is around.