The pine marten is one of our most beautiful, yet least known predators. Almost no one has caught a glimpse of this lithe woodland hunter and most people would struggle to describe it . . .
To start, even the name is misleading. Pine martens do indeed live in conifer plantations, but are no means confined to evergreens. The name stems from potential confusion with a close relative, the beech marten. Although this is missing from Britain, the species overlap on the Continent. Because the pine marten is more prevalent than its relative in northern conifer woods, its common name reflects this. In the absence of competition and given a choice, British martens prefer broadleafs. Given such habitats generally provide much richer hunting grounds, this is hardly surprising.
That said, one would search in vain for them across most of the country, for these are now one of our rarest predators. Today they are almost completely restricted to the Highlands and the West Coast of Ireland, but it was not always thus. Until the late 18th century they were found all over Britain, but their range then started to contract dramatically. By 1850 they were absent from the Home Counties and Midlands and by the turn of the 20th century they were almost extinct across the whole of England and much of Wales and Scotland. This was due largely to the Victorian mania for shooting and the resulting persecution of anything which might harm gamebirds, but it was also helped by woodland clearance (by 1900 Britain had only 5% tree cover). The animals were sliding towards oblivion,
The First World War stopped the rot, however, dealing a hammer blow to the rural aristocracy and its use of the land. Two results were a decline in shooting estates and the formation of the Forestry Commission in 1919. With less persecution and more trees, martens began to climb back and are now thriving in their Scottish heartlands. The picture along the Pennines and Wales is much more confusing, however.
Unfortunately pine martens are particularly difficult to monitor when numbers are very low. This is because they are mainly nocturnal and spend much of their lives high in the canopy, making sightings rare. Thus in areas where they are scarce researchers rely on tracking. Droppings should be relatively easy to find because, like all weasels, they heavily scent mark their territories, but other traces such as footprints, hairs, prey remains and road accidents should also confirm their presence.
Or at least that is the theory, but no such signs were found in Wales for 30 a year period, despite many credible sightings. Then, just when the sceptics were prepared to declare it extinct in the Principality, a scat (dropping) was found at Devil’s Bridge and in 2012 a corpse was found on a road near Newtown. To confuse matters, however, DNA analysis suggests these both seemed to have a strong Scottish content, suggesting clandestine reintroduction by conservationists. Nevertheless, there have been sufficient credible sightings for experts to think there is probably a relict population here – but in tiny numbers. As a result, in the Autumn of 2015 some 20 radio-tagged animals from the Highlands were released near Devil’s Bridge and these appear to be thiving.
Martens are territorial and solitary for most of the year. They only meet to mate in July or August, but implantation is delayed until February. This is followed by the birth of – usually – three kits in late March. Normally they tend to sleep in hollow trees, crows nests or squirrel dreys, but the breeding den is usually at ground level, hidden in a rock fissure or among tumbled boulders.
Although martens are widely distributed through most Continental forests, in Britain they are mainly confined to the Highlands and Galloway. The last is due to an accidental release by the Forestry Commission in the late 1980s when scientists failed to roof a research pen. This was a glaring omission in an enclosure designed to restrain a creature which is arboreal enough to catch a squirrel fleeing through the tree tops. Naturally the hunters scampered out and – much to the delight of foresters – thrived on the local grey squirrels which they find much easier to catch than the native red species, largely because greys spend much more time on the ground.
This success has prompted the People’s Trust for Endangered Species to propose a reintroduction programme for England. It looked at five possible sites and narrowed these down to one near Heathfield in East Sussex and another outside Minehead in Somerset. The plan was to release radio-tagged Scottish animals here, but the scheme has foundered because they are not listed on the Government’s Biodiversity Action Plan which prioritises species of conservation concern. As a predator which could harm song- and game birds, this means the plans are easily blocked by ornithologists and shooting interests.
In a bizarre twist, the scheme has also run into strong opposition from an unexpected direction. Although the Vincent Wildlife Trust is dedicated to helping native mammals, it passionately believes natural recolonisation is preferable to man’s intervention and says it would be better to look to the remnant English and Welsh populations.
