'Lucky' badger rescued after Neston sewage tank tumble

Ms Norris said that while badgers can swim, it would have been "a pretty unpleasant experience for him"

A bewildered badger has been saved from a "smelly situation" after falling into a sewage tank at a wastewater plant.

RSPCA inspector Naomi Norris said the beleaguered brock was "lucky to land" on a ledge after tumbling into the tank at Neston in Cheshire on 21 November.

She said she and fellow inspector Katie Glenn worked for "over an hour" to "pull him to safety".

She said it had a "pretty unpleasant experience", but "wasn't as wet or as smelly" as it might have been.

"There are lots of tanks and unfortunately, this particular badger had picked one that contained raw sewage," she said.

"He was lucky to land on the ledge as the surrounding water is about 20 feet deep.

"Although badgers can swim and he might have been able to clamber out, it would have been a pretty unpleasant experience for him."

The RSPCA said the badger was "relatively dry and unharmed, apart from a couple of minor scratches"

She said the badger "ran around the edge of the tank for about an hour before we were finally able to catch him using a grasper and a net to support his weight as we pulled him up".

"We don't know how long he'd been down there, but the most likely explanation is that he fell in overnight," she added.

"He was a little damp... but he certainly wasn't as wet or as smelly as he might have been."

An RSPCA representative said the badger was "relatively dry and unharmed, apart from a couple of minor scratches on his nose", and was later released back into the wild.