Pine marten climbing by Green Yoshi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.jpg
Join us on Thursday 25th February from 7pm till 9pm for an evening talk by Lucy Nord from Vincent Wildlife Trust to learn more about Pine martens.
This will be a great chance to ask questions to an expert and discover how landowners can help these wonderful creatures successfully recolonise the Wye landscape.
During the Mesolithic era Pine martens were the second most common carnivore in Britain. Today they are our second rarest carnivore, but happily, populations are expanding in number and range.
Pine martens prey on small mammals, carrion and insects, as well as eating birds’ eggs, berries and honey. There is growing evidence that pine martens have a positive impact on red squirrel populations, through predating non-native grey squirrels. Grey squirrels are slower, larger, spend more time on the ground and haven’t evolved to evade Pine martens. This could potentially help save our native red squirrels and help reduce the significant damage to trees caused by grey squirrels.
After being extinct in England due to persecution and habitat loss and having just a tiny populations left in Scotland and Wales, Pine martens have been successfully reintroduced between 2015 and 2017 by Vincent Wildlife Trust (VWT) through a “population reinforcement” - translocating animals from Scotland to Mid-Wales. Between 2019 and 2021, VWT worked with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to reintroduce pine martens to the Forest of Dean.
Both of these areas in the Forest of Dean and Mid-Wales are local to the Wye landscape - Pine martens are expanding into our local areas and need our help.
By putting up Den boxes for them to breed in, planting woodland, widening hedgerows and allowing meadows to be wilder and scrubbier, you can help Pine martens thrive in the Wye landscape.
Pine martens have large territories, males range from 5-25 km² depending on woodland density, and females around half of a male territory, from 5-15 km². Each Pine marten ideally needs 1km² of native woodland within its territory - thats 100 hectares - rewilding at scale is what we need to support viable Pine marten populations in Britain once again.
Read more here by Rewilding Britain and Vincent Wildlife Trust here:
https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/why-rewild/reintroductions-key-species/key-species/pine-marten