STAFF and volunteers from environmental groups in the Wye Valley have been trained on how to track the spread of pine martens with the Forest’s population expanding across the Wye and into Wales.

The Project Pine Marten team from Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust (GWT) held a two-day workshop on how to track and care for the species at Forest Holidays in Christchurch last month.

Staff and volunteers from Gwent Wildlife Trust, Natural Resources Wales and the Wye Valley AONB attended the workshop to learn how to effectively monitor the species as they develop their own territories and spread into neighbouring counties.

Pine martens were reintroduced in the Forest in 2019 and are already, as hoped, beginning to spread into other parts of the Wye Valley.

The project team taught those at the workshop how to use scat surveys and monitoring to track where they are spreading and how they are establishing their territories, as well as how they can give the species a “helping hand” by installing den boxes to provide them with a space place where they may one day have kits.

A total of 40 pine martens, which were translocated from Scotland, have been released in the Forest in the last two years, after the species had been driven to local extinction through habitat loss and predator control in the 1800s.

The project, which is a collaboration between Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, Forestry England, Forest Research and Vincent Wildlife Trust, was established to build upon the work of existing translocation projects in central Wales.

It is thought that the species could impact the population of grey squirrels, which are non-native and are known to spread disease amongst native red squirrels, in Gloucestershire and the surrounding areas, as well as bringing in more tourists and helping people to engage with nature.

A post about the workshop on Forest Holidays’ Facebook page said: “One of our long-standing partnerships is with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and we have continuously backed their proactive campaign to return pine martens to the Forest of Dean.

“It is now hoped that their recovery here will create a stronghold for the species in England as well as restore natural balance and ecological processes to woodland ecosystems.”