Martens on the Move — highlights of the first year

What did we get up to during 2024?

The year began with the appointment of the Martens on the Move team.

• Dr Stephanie Johnstone – returning as Project Manager

• Victoria Chanin – Project Officer for the Scottish-English border

• Lucy Nord – Project Officer for the Welsh-English border

• Rowie Burcham – Communications and Engagement Officer

Of course, the project is also greatly supported by the wider VWT team as well.

Straight away, Victoria, Lucy and I helped to support Stephanie with the organisation and running of the North of England Pine Marten Meeting. This meeting took place in Grizedale in Cumbria, jointly hosted by VWT and Forestry England, and was attended by 28 people from 17 different conservation and land management organisations. The event really emphasised the importance of collaborative working at the landscape scale to make pine marten conservation in Britain successful and was a fantastic start to the beginning of Martens on the Move. 

Across the rest of the year, the team has engaged face-to-face with more than 1,300 people at a variety of events, workshops and educational sessions. This includes events such as Monmouth Pride and Galloway Country Fair, as well as several talks given by our Project Officers to a wide range of audiences. The team has also worked with young people in rural areas, including the Scottish Badgers Earn Your Stripes group, Queering the Wye, and the Wild About Borders youth group — as well as two schools in partnership with Rural Media. Through this part of the project, we aim to increase knowledge of pine martens and demonstrate through practical activities how we monitor the species. Martens on the Move is a project focusing on the natural recovery of pine martens in Britain through community action. Attending and running events like these is a key step to achieving this as it helps raise public understanding of the species as well as recruit volunteers.

Installing pine marten den boxes is another key part of the project. Den boxes replicate old tree cavities, which the species naturally prefer to use to raise their young and overwinter. However, Britain’s woodlands often lack trees old enough to have large cavities and, by installing den boxes, we’re helping to improve the landscape for pine martens. During the year, we installed 24 new pine marten den boxes across our two Strategic Recovery Areas, most of which had been built by amazing volunteers. A number were also donated by Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, following the end of their Project Pine Marten. You can read more about these den boxes in my previous blog here.

 

In autumn, with support from VWT’s Senior Design and Communications Officer, Julia Bracewell, we launched the Martens on the Move new ‘Digital Trio’. This encompassed:

•The pinemartens.uk website

•VWT’s new TikTok account

•The National Pine Marten Monitoring Programme

This new digital content offers up-to-date information on pine martens in Britain, highlights the project’s work to a wider audience, and promotes opportunities to get involved. Additionally, the National Pine Marten Monitoring Programme brings together monitoring data from professional and volunteer pine marten enthusiasts across Britain and allows the public to record their sightings of the species. The information gained here will assist with future conservation decisions to help pine martens thrive once again.

Volunteers help to make it happen

I can’t talk about the past year without mentioning the volunteers who have given their time and energy to support Martens on the Move. Firstly, there is the Houghton Project, the Dalbeattie Men’s Shed and the Llangadog, Llandeilo and Llandovery Men’s Shed who, following training from John Martin, have built the pine marten den boxes we’ve installed. We also have landowners who are hosting these den boxes on their land and individuals and groups, such as the Scottish Borders Pine Marten Group, the Kippford Association and Go Wild Scotland, helping to monitor the species with trail cameras. 

 

We also began working with our project partners to develop our three new ‘Pine Marten Haven Sites’. These are located at:

•Kirroughtree Visitor Centre in Dumfries and Galloway (in partnership with Forestry and Land Scotland)

•Wentwood Forest in Monmouthshire (in partnership with Coed Cadw, Woodland Trust and Natural Resources Wales)

•Wallington Hall in Northumberland (in partnership with the National Trust).

Each Pine Marten Haven will have a new wildlife viewing hide and information boards along walking trails, where visitors can learn about pine martens and enjoy time in nature. The team is working in collaboration with our partners and volunteers to create enjoyable and educational experiences at each of these sites. We are also working with our partners to demonstrate how woodlands can be diversified and improved to help pine martens and the wider environment that supports them. At one of the Pine Marten Haven Sites — Wallington Hall in Northumberland — the West End Refugee Service has already been helping with habitat improvement works.

We are looking forward to launching our three ‘Pine Marten Haven Sites’ with the project partners in Scotland, England and Wales. 

To find out more about the Pine Marten Haven Sites, click here.

Looking ahead 

Following on from the den box installations, and with continued support from our volunteers, we’re looking forward to this year’s pine marten breeding season. With volunteers using trail cameras to monitor these den boxes, the footage captured in 2025 will provide us with new knowledge of the species’ geographic range and population status as well as interesting insights into their behaviour. All this invaluable information will help to add to our knowledge and understanding of pine martens in Britain. 

In 2025, we will continue to develop educational materials that will link to each of the National Curriculums of Scotland, Wales and England. The project has already begun working with young people in the two Strategic Recovery Areas, but we want to reach further afield. We hope that by bringing pine martens into classrooms (theoretically of course!) and showcasing this charismatic species as an ambassador for landscape-scale conservation, it will help young people understand and connect with the natural world around them. 

 

The Martens on the Move team would like to thank everyone who has made 2024 a fantastic first year for the project. Here’s to 2025!

If you would like to get involved with the Martens on the Move project, please register your interest here.

Martens on the Move is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to the National Lottery players, we are able to create opportunities to increase knowledge and understanding of pine martens and to improve habitats for the species across the UK.

Rowie Burcham — Martens on the Move Communications and Engagement Officer