Pine martens and Glen Affric

I’ve already written about visiting Glen Strathfarrar in the spring. and the next day I went 10 miles south to Glen Affric, one of the main areas where Trees for Life has been working to preserve and extend the kind of Caledonian forest which once covered most of the Scottish Highlands. Unlike Glen Strathfarrar, Glen Affric is mostly owned by the Forestry Commission so access is straightforward with car parks, maps, and marked trails. In one area I saw evidence of pine martens, although not the creatures themselves.

Some of the pictures at the end of this post were taken from the side of the road, but they are mostly on the walking trails which start at the Forestry Commission car park near Dog Falls. My route was mainly to walk up the hillside to the south of the car park and then down to Coire Loch which is surrounded by the forest.

Near the loch, I saw a lot of toads on the paths – almost standing on one as I tried to avoid stepping on another at some points! Then on the trail from the loch to Dog Falls I saw some pine marten droppings (“scat”), as shown in these two pictures. They both have a UK penny for scale (similar in size to a US or Euro one cent piece.)

The pine marten was almost driven to extinction due destruction of its woodland habitat and persecution because of its perceived threat to nesting birds. In 1981 it became protected, but surviving populations were only known for certain in the Highlands. Gradually numbers have risen, and pine martens have been discovered in the lowlands and Borders, and in parts of northern England and Wales. It’s not clear which of these are surviving populations and which are recolonisation from the Highlands.  There have also been reintroductions, notably in mid-Wales, and these may account for the recent sightings of them in Shropshire – only 40 miles from Century Wood!

As well their own value, there is strong evidence that pine martens help red squirrels to increase in numbers in grey squirrel areas, as numbers of greys decline.  Several mechanisms have been proposed but it’s likely to be fundamentally that reds evolved to succeed despite the presence of the pine marten, a tree-climbing predator, but the American grey squirrel didn’t.