Pine Marten Recovery Project

Project Animal(s) : Pine Marten
Project Category : Mammals
Project Region : Europe
Project Type : Conservation
Project URL : https://www.vwt.org.uk/projects-all/pine-marten-recovery-project/
Project is timebound? : No

Vincent Wildlife Trust, with its 30-year history of pine marten research in Britain, has boosted the struggling marten population in Wales with a small, but significant, number of martens translocated from Scotland.

In the ancient wildwoods that once blanketed much of Britain, the pine marten was one of our most common carnivores, thriving amongst the diversity of trees and shrubs that offered a year round supply of food and snug tree holes in which to den.

Pine marten numbers declined dramatically during the 19th and early 20th century as a result of the combined impact of continued habitat loss and an increase in predator control associated with the growth in Victorian game shooting estates. Whilst the pine marten population in Scotland is recovering and expanding, the marten population in England and Wales had been showing no sign of recovery and the likely outcome would have been extinction. It was clear that intervention was needed to restore viable populations of this native mammal south of the Scottish border.

Project Agency : Vincent Wildlife Trust

Project Agency Contact : https://www.vwt.org.uk/