Badgers are highly social animals that live in complex family groups with long-term social bonds, making social disruption a significant welfare concern.
Badger social welfare reflects the welfare importance of social bonds in gregarious mammals. Stable badger groups function as complex social units with established hierarchies, shared care of cubs, and coordinated territory defence. Disruption through illegal persecution destroys these social structures, leaving orphaned cubs unable to survive independently. Even legal culling can cause social disruption that paradoxically increases movement and disease transmission between disturbed groups.