The mammal, which is very rare in England, has been spotted on a camera trap installed to monitor hedgehogs.
A pine marten, a mammal locally common in Scotland but rarely found in England and Wales, has been spotted in the capital for the first time in more than a century. It was captured on a camera trap installed by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) to monitor hedgehogs.
The endangered mustelid was sighted in the Shropshire hills in 2015 and remains an extremely unusual sighting in England. This time, the pine marten was spotted in a woodland in south-west London.
“As part of our ongoing hedgehog monitoring work, we deploy camera traps across woodlands,” said Kate Scott-Gatty, research assistant for ZSL and London HogWatch. “In this area, these are usually set off by the movement of common species such as foxes and badgers, so you can imagine our surprise at seeing a pine marten – a species usually only glimpsed in Scotland and northern England.”
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