Pine martens return to Dartmoor after 150-year absence | Hacker News Reader

Pine martens return to Dartmoor after 150-year absence

theguardian.com

82 pointszeristor31 comments

> Studies have also shown the pine martens are effective predators of grey squirrels, giving hope that they may provide a natural control for the introduced squirrel, which damages trees in commercial plantations and has virtually wiped out the red squirrel in England.

If, like me, you were wondering whether they also predate red squirrels, apparently pine martens hunt and eat grey squirrels far more, as they're able to easily raid grey squirrel nests. Red squirrels have evolved alongside pine martens and have better awareness to the threat they pose. This article was informative:

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/pine-martens-predate-o...

I believe red squirrels are lighter than pine martens, and so can go out further on branches, whereas grey squirrels can’t.

I’m guessing they’ll be able to reintroduce red squirrels in these areas in due course.

I guess the key indicator for the martens is that grey squirrels are simply a larger meal.

Sometimes they might go further on suitable thin branches, but I doubt that this matters much. I have never heard of a case when a marten could not advance towards a squirrel due to fear of breaking the branch.

What red squirrels can do and martens cannot do, is to jump down from the tree from a relatively great height without injury, due to their low weight and fluffy hair and then climb into another tree, far from the marten.

It is likely that this behavior of some squirrels is what has lead to the evolution of the flying squirrels.

Seems like there are some squirrel wars going on in the UK

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/red-squirrels-b...

Anecdotally I can say that red squirrels and Pine Martens can co-exist quite happily, as I live in an area where we see both regularly and the presence of the Pine Martens doesn't seem to intimidate the squirrels or reduce their numbers significantly.

Also turns out that Pine Martens are quite fond of peanuts.

Apart from being cute, beautiful woodland creatures, pine martens are famously the most sympathetic tech interviewers:

https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-interview

That's such a good tangent that I had to upvote. I've read it before, but it's well worth re-reading.

"snicker-slithing susurrential warrens" is just insanely beautiful.

I was a bit confused because there's a related species in North America, Martes americana, that is also sometimes called the pine marten (more properly, the American marten or American pine marten). The European species is Martes martes.

The American species clearly doesn't extirpate gray squirrels, but in North America red and gray squirrels do coexist. However, these red squirrels are also a different species, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, not the European species, Sciurus vulgaris. The American pine marten is a predator of the American red squirrel.

Squirrel taxonomy seems to be in a state of flux at present due to DNA information becoming available.

> However, these red squirrels are also a different species

Less tufty ears, more violent.

No Beatrix Potter character for these psychos.

Just quickly skimmed the article but does the article answer why they seem to be everywhere in Europe except for England ? [0]

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/European...

> Pine martens were driven to extinction in England at the turn of the 20th century by the loss of forests and persecution, with gamekeepers in particular targeting the animals for preying upon pheasants and poultry.

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