The Pine Marten Scat Project

The Vincent Wildlife Trust has received generous funding from The Co-operative to help progress its long-running pine marten conservation work in Wales. The People and Pine Martens in Wales project will develop understanding of the status and distribution of the pine marten, improve habitat and inform future conservation plans for the species in Wales.

During 2008-2009, the Vincent Wildlife Trust completed a two-year pine marten scat survey of England and Wales. The aims of the survey were to test the efficacy of scat surveys as a methodology for conducting pine marten surveys and to build on sightings reports to continue confirming the distribution of pine martens in England and Wales.

20 sites in England and Wales, selected as they had the highest number of recent high quality pine marten sightings, were surveyed for scats, with the help of over 200 volunteers. All possible pine marten scats were DNA tested at Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland. DNA typing of marten scats is essential because marten scats are notoriously difficult to identify morphologically.

Scat surveys have proved to be a valuable method in surveying for pine martens and are likely to be a widely-used technique in our continuing work detecting the presence of pine martens in Britain.

We are looking for volunteers to help with a pine marten scat survey of Brechfa Forest, Carmarthenshire on Saturday 5th October, 10am-4pm.

The survey will involve walking forest tracks and paths, looking for and collecting any possible pine marten scats. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t taken part in a scat survey before, as we will give you a full briefing on the day and all equipment will be provided.

If you are interested in taking part or would like further details, please contact David Bavin- davidbavin@vwt.org.uk.