English Pine Martin

English pine martin spotted for first time in century
news/2010_jan/shropshiremarten1
After numerous rumours and questionable sightings a pine martin has been confirmed living in England for the first time in a century

Last week, amateur photographer and wildlife recorder Dave Pearce sent two photographs, of what he thought was a pine martin, to Stuart Edmunds of Shropshire Wildlife Trust, who for the last five years has been running the Shropshire Pine Marten project, following up possible sightings. So far, all the reports have been either unverifiable or cases of mistaken identification, but Stuart remained convinced that one day, conclusive evidence would emerge of the presence of pine martens.

Stuart received Dave's images he was thrilled to bits, as at last his suspicios were confirmed with photographic evidence of a pine marten in Shropshire.

“This is incredibly exciting,” he says. “Pine martens were thought to be extinct in England and there is now a possibility that they may have been living here right under our noses for a long time”.

There is a thriving population of at least 4,000 pine martens in Scotland and they are known to exist in Wales in small numbers in Snowdonia and mid Wales. These creatures are very mobile, easily travelling 20km in a day. Pine martens are also highly territorial, with bigger ones pushing out younger, smaller ones so they need to travel to set up new territories. Very likely, the Shropshire marten has come from Wales.

Pine martens are house cat-sized members of the stoat and weasel family and spend most of their active time in trees during twilight hours and at night, so are very difficult to see.
Stuart is keen to hear of other possible pine marten sightings, send info to him directly at stuartedmunds@rocketmail.com or via Twitter @PinemartensUK

WS

That is such good news, I saw it on FB and thought how great that it was in the next door county

Thanks WS

Lai