The badger is a large mammal, common but very rarely seen in Britain, which has become one of Britain's best-loved animals. It is a very social animal, living in large family groups and maintaining large territories. It is its nocturnal lifestyle that make it so difficult to see. This new volume in the New Naturalist series reveals the extraordinary complex life style that allows this secretive animal to live in even the most built-up areas of Britain. It also reveals the facts behind the current role of badgers in transmitting tuberculosis to cattle, a theory that has resulted in some of the most intense wildlife investigation in the past ten years.