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Vandals in the cemetery? No, its those grave-digging badgers

“Even the Queen couldn’t move them, they are so protected”

Badgers are wreaking havoc in a town's Victorian cemetery by digging up graves and bringing up bones - and the council is powerless to stop them.

The area has been targeted by vandals in the past and one passerby thought they had returned to tamper with the graveyard. It was then that the connection with the badgers was made. 

The badgers have also been tunnelling under headstones at the 33,000-grave cemetery. This has even led to bones having to be reburied by dedicated staff.

But Radnor Street Cemetery in Swindon, Wiltshire, has been a protected nature reserve since 2005 and furthermore the badgers have another layer of cover under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 which makes it illegal to kill, injure or take a badger, or interfere with a sett.

“We want to encourage wildlife and badgers are a part of it. The council feels the same. Even the Queen couldn’t move them, they are so protected,” said Graham Carter, a spokesman for the Friends of Radnor Street.

Compared with the vandals who have pushed over headstones, stolen lead from the chapel roof and even stripped a war memorial of its metal, the damage done by badgers is minimal, he added.


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The group is currently in the process of applying for a Heritage Lottery Fund to make the resting place into a wildlife haven and the badgers are encouraged to help the green space thrive.

Swindon Borough Council said: “Licenses to move badgers are only granted in exceptional circumstances. There have been occasions over the years where human remains have been found above the ground in the cemetery and we have reverently re-interred these as close to their original graves as possible.”