Do badgers kill family pets like cats, dogs and rabbits?
Badgers do not generally kill family pets like cats and dogs. Most cats and dogs will avoid a badger if they see one. Others may stand their ground before realizing that it’s better to run away in defeat. Sadly, a very few pets do find themselves in situations where they are cornered and the badger sees them as a threat to its cubs, and they may be attacked and rarely killed. Importantly, badgers do eat a lot of dead meat (carrion), so may well eat any dead animals they come across. When people have reported badgers “killing” pets, they have normally seen a badger eating an animal that was already dead when the badger found it. Tens of thousands of pet cats are killed on the roads every year, so it’s not too surprising that badgers are seen eating these “roadkill” carcasses, and blamed for doing the killing. To be fair to the badger, up to 50,000 badgers are killed on the roads each year too. Traffic is probably a far higher risk to family pets than badgers, foxes, stray dogs, etc. Tha
