Pine martens could be breeding in Shropshire as another little mammal is spotted on film

Stuart Edmunds, from Shropshire Wildlife Trust, caught the latest pine marten on film on Thursday, through a camera trap placed in new woodland.

It comes after the SWT received additional funding from the Stepping Stones Project last year, which has allowed for more volunteers to check cameras.

Now, at least 20 individual pine martens have been filmed on the camera traps since 2015, including young pine martens spotted last year, which suggests they are breeding in the county.

Stuart said: "We are going through our most productive periods. Over the last year we have found a hotspot."

The Shropshire Wildlife Trust are now looking forward to protecting and improving the woodland habitat that pine martens need to thrive, including planting more trees.

The trust have also been delivering talks and events dedicated to pine martens in order to raise public awareness of them.

Pine Martens were once hunted by fur trappers in the UK during the Victorian period and had been persecuted in areas with a high density of pheasant shoot and gamebird rearing farms.

They had been extinct in Shropshire for more than 100 years up until July 2015, when one was photographed by Dave Pearce.

Now that pine martens appear to be gradually moving into the county once again, there is a possibility that we may see a reduction in grey squirrels, Stuart said.

As a result, there is hope that we may see other species emerging again, including red squirrels – the native squirrel species to Shropshire– which were wiped out in the region in the 1970s.

The Pine Marten Project was formed by Stuart through the Shropshire Mammal Group in 2009.

To find out more visit shropshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/pinemartenproject