Pine martens are arboreal Hunters, who are very at home in the forests of the UK (and europe). Once rather common they have been hit by a double whammy of the loss of their native woodland and forests,and gamekeepers persecuting them due to their habit of taking game birds.
However one of the advantages of pine martens is that being skillful hunters in the trees, grey squirrels cannot survive in their presence. Red squirrels on the other hand and are smaller and lighter and far more agile allowing them to live in the vicinity of pine martens. Indeed where it not for the persecution of these animals it is highly unlikely that grey squirrels would have ever become established in the UK, and even now the pine Marten is by far and away the simplest way of eradicating grey squirrels, and saving our native reds. Apart from grey squirrels and red squirrels being capable of living in the same place, grey squirrels do significant damage to forest that they live in, and really should be removed. The hope is that this population will breed and spread, and we’ll start the gradual march South that will push the grey squirrels out of the UK.
To this end last year 18 pine martens were translocated from the Scottish highlands to the forest of Dean. Pine martens do not breed every year and are generally quite susceptible to changes in their environment.
As such the fact that 3 of the females have had kits this year is hugely encouraging,and should hopefully give the green light for further translocations in the near future.
We can only hope that this is the first step in the recovery of the second rarest predators in the UK and that it is the first moved towards the repopulating large parts of the UK. There is much need for restoration of the uk wilderness, it is exciting to see a move in the right direction.
