Professor David Macdonald CBE has been Director of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University since founding it in 1986, and is also Senior Research Fellow in Wildlife Conservation at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. He began research in Wytham Woods in 1972, and has been studying badgers since then. In 1986 he began the routine annual sampling of badgers which is the foundation of this book. A recent survey by BBC
Wildlife magazine listed him amongst the ten most influential living conservationists, and he has twice been awarded the Natural History Author of the Year.

Chris Newman joined the Wildlife Conservation Unit at Oxford University in 1991, spending 15 years living on-site in the heart of Wytham Woods which gave him unprecedented access to the 300 badgers that shared his garden. In 2019 he moved to Novia Scotia to work as an independent ecological consultant.