By Cara Sulieman
A BABY badger narrowly escaped death after falling down a storm drain and getting stuck.
With eight-foot high walls the badger would either have starved or drowned if a passer-by hadn’t heard it struggling to get out.
Seeing that the animal was stuck, they called the Scottish SPCA out to the scene in Cupar, Fife.
But freeing the stubborn four-month-old animal proved to be difficult.
Wriggled out
Scottish SPCA Inspector Louise Seddon responded to the call and tried to pull the badger out with a grasper before having to resort to a more hands-on approach.
She said: “He wasn’t the most willing rescue victim and resisted capture for quite some time.
“We tried to pull him up with a long grasper, but he kept using his front legs to prevent it going round his body so in the end I had to get down into the muddy drain and carry him up to safety.
“Although he had no physical injuries, he was displaying signs of shock and he didn’t eat for a couple of days, so we cared for him at our Wildlife Rescue Centre until we were happy he was ready to be released.”
Glad to be home
Last Saturday the recovered badger was released into the woodland near Ceres Road in Cupar, near to where he was found.
Although he is still very young, he isn’t dependant on his mother anymore and will be living by himself in the wild.
Inspector Seddon said: “We released him at dusk close to the area we found him. He was a bit unsure at first, but once he had his bearings he bounded off into the woods, no doubt glad to be back home.
“It was lucky for this little badger that someone heard him struggling. In bad weather the storm drain will quickly fill with water, so there’s a chance he could have drowned.”
Police
A spokesman for Fife Police said that they had attended the scene after a member of the public had alerted the local station.
He said: “At about 12.25pm a woman went into the inquiry office at Cupar and said her husband had found a stranded badger when he was out walking the dog.
“It was in the storm drain near the cemetery at Ceres Road in the hamlet of Ceres near Cupar.
“We called the Scottish SPCA and stayed on the scene until the animal was safe with the charity.”
