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.
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.
That part of Cornwall is well-suited for them – remote and very scrubby
Derek Gow
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.
Pine martens, which hunt in treetops for small mammals, birds and insects, were hunted for their fur and pursued by gamekeepers.
