First came the beavers, appearing mysteriously in a Devon river centuries after being hunted to extinction; now another intriguing animal believed to have vanished from southern Britain – the pine marten – may also have returned from the dead.
The wild beaver's back. Now it's the turn of the pine marten. What a time to be alive http://t.co/5aVAl0nIu1 pic.twitter.com/qV9cPsTjEa
— Graeme Demianyk (@GraemeDemianyk) March 17, 2015
A student from north Cornwall, Jack Merritt, said he caught images of the animal on a night-vision camera he set up close to his home in Bude.
He said: “I knew I had captured something different. I had no idea of its significance to start with. I spoke to a few friends who had some suggestions but decided to send it to someone who may have a better idea of what it was all about.”
Merritt sent the footage to Derek Gow, a Devon-based wildlife expert who is a leading light in the successful campaign to allow West Country beavers to stay. Gow concluded the animal was a pine marten, last seen in the west of England in the 1960s.
“It’s amazing. It’s definitely a pine marten,” said Gow. “I’ve got no idea where it came from.” Pine martens are still to be found in Scotland and there are believed to be a few pockets of them in the far north of England.
Gow said: “It’s conceivable someone has moved pine martens from Scotland and released them in Cornwall. That part of Cornwall is well suited for them – remote and very scrubby. People sometimes think they need coniferous forests but they don’t – that area would be fine for them.”
Following the publication of Merritt’s video, Exmoor national park authority’s trees and woodlands team sent a tweet saying there have been two other possible sightings in the West Country.
@martinhesp We had 2 independent uncorroborated sightings of pine martens in a west Somerset wood back in June 2009. Nothing since though.
— Exmoor Woodland ENPA (@WoodlandsENPA) March 17, 2015
Pine martens, which hunt in treetops for small mammals, birds and insects, were hunted for their fur and pursued by gamekeepers.
