Shropshire's colony of pine martens to appear on BBC show
Shropshire’s rare flourishing colony of pine martens is set to feature on the BBC’s One Show.
A film crew headed to the county recently to view the work of Shropshire Wildlife Trust to re-introduce the once-nearly extinct animal.
When they were first spotted in Shropshire two years ago, it was thought they would struggle to establish themselves, but the pine martens seem to be proving the experts wrong.
The trust’s resident pine marten enthusiast, Stuart Edmunds, has captured at least eight on camera traps – a motion-activated camera. He said: “We had a film crew from from Bristol come along to do a stakeout.
“Unfortunately they could only stay for the night so didn’t capture anything on their cameras.
“Ideally you need to do it over a few weeks but I’ve had camera traps set up for a long time now and have captured astounding footage of a number of pine martens which will be featured on the One Show.
“They also went out in the woods to look at the boxes we have set up to see if any of them are being used.
“It was a big selling point for them to go somewhere for the first time in England where pine martens are proven to be living. It’s all filmed and ready to go but unfortunately we don’t know exactly when it will be aired yet.”
The trust’s project aims to raise awareness of the elusive mammals through talks, school visits and liaison with local landowners.
Mr Edmunds added: “We want to give the pine martens the best possible chance of surviving and will work hard to protect the woodlands upon which they depend, while improving the potential for them to breed by offering safe den boxes across a wide area.” In England, pine martens are extremely rare, and were long considered probably extinct.
The European pine marten has lived to 18 years in captivity, but in the wild a lifespan of eight to 10 years is more typical.
The young are usually born in March or April after a seven-month-long gestation period in litters of one-to-five. Young European pine martens weigh around 30 grams at birth. The young begin to emerge from their dens by the middle of June and are fully independent around six months after their birth.
