'Incredibly lucky' badger saved from Northumberland lime kiln by RSPCA

A badger has been described as "incredibly lucky" after being rescued from a lime kiln in Northumberland.

The RSPCA were contacted on 11 February after a member of the public spotted the animal down a kiln near the village of Shilbottle.

Two officers used ladders to descend the structure, which was once used to breakdown limestone rock with heat.

It is thought the badger fell about ten feet (three metres), but escaped serious injury.

Animal rescue officer David Dawson, who attended the scene said the badger, which is thought to be female, would have been difficult to spot.

He said: "She was reasonably camouflaged because she’d started to dig a tunnel into the soil and was only really partly visible.

"The man who saw her was likely to have been passing at the time, so she was very lucky to have been spotted, and of course there’s no way of knowing how long she may have been trapped down there."

"She literally seems to have walked into thin air and then fallen into the kiln."

Inspector Lucy Green approached the animal with a special grasper and secured it into a portable kennel. It was then lifted out of the kiln by Mr Dawson.

He added: "It’s quite a drop, so she was also fortunate not to have injured herself in the process and she certainly shot off down the hill and into the undergrowth fast enough as soon as we released her."

According to Mr Dawson, the Northumberland lime kiln was one of the more unusual locations he has had to rescue a badger from. He said that had the badger not been spotted, the outcome could have been very different.

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