# The status of pine martens Martes martes (L.) in Northern Ireland, 1850-2004

> Where have Northern Ireland’s pine martens gone? By piecing together 150 years of records and walking 57 forests in search of scats, researchers found that martens once shot on sporting estates now face a new danger on the roads, with Fermanagh and Tyrone still their strongholds. They also warn that fox scats are easily mistaken for marten scats.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2007-tosh-preston-status-pine-martens-martes/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** David Tosh, S. Jane Preston and Robbie A. McDonald
- **Year published:** 2007
- **Journal or source:** Irish Naturalists’ Journal
- **Full citation:** Tosh, D., Preston, S. J. and McDonald, R. A. 2007. The status of pine martens Martes martes (L.) in Northern Ireland, 1850-2004. Irish Naturalists’ Journal 28(11): 433–439.
- **Access status:** Publisher link only
- **Where to find it:** https://www.jstor.org/journal/irisnatuj

## Tags

- **Species:** Mammals > Pine marten; Mammals > Red fox; Mammals > Stoat
- **Region:** Europe > United Kingdom
- **Tracking:** Scat; Sign surveys; Tracking; Tracks and signs identification
- **Methods and technology:** Descriptive statistics; Distribution mapping; Population trends
- **Data type:** Existing data; New field data
- **Observer qualification:** Not reported
- **Discipline:** Population trends; Wildlife tracking
- **Year published:** 2007

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: pine marten (Martes martes). Scats of red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and stoat (Mustela erminea) were also found on the survey routes. Other mustelids in Ireland named in the paper: otter (Lutra lutra), badger (Meles meles), feral American mink (Neovison vison) and ferret (Mustela putorius). Older records listed two “species” of marten in Ireland, Martes sylvatica and Mustela martes, which the authors treated as one species, Martes martes.
- **Location and habitat:** Northern Ireland, United Kingdom: forests in Counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, chosen because they held, or were near, clusters of historical records. Scats were searched for along forest tracks and roads. Comparisons with the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, and with an activity study in Białowieża National Park, Poland.
- **Topics:** species distribution and status, historical records, range contraction, game-keeping and persecution, sporting estates, road kills as a growing threat, habitat fragmentation, seasonal pattern of records, scat surveys, scat identification by appearance (morphology) and location, surveyor error, genetic verification of scats, legal protection (EU Habitats Directive Annex V, Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985).
- **Statistics or models:** Descriptive statistics only: counts, averages per year and percentages. Records were grouped into four types (trapped or shot, sighting, scat, road kill) and six time periods (1850-1899, 1900-1929, 1930-1959, 1960-1982, 1983-1994, 1995-2004). Inconsistencies in the paper: the abstract gives 11 (19%) sites with pine marten scats, 9 (15%) with fox and stoat scats only and 38 (66%) with none, which adds up to 58 sites, not the 57 surveyed; the Discussion says 12 (21%) of 57 sites had scats similar to pine marten, while Table 2 adds up to 11 sites. The Results give 25 scats at 20 sites (12 pine marten, 12 fox, 1 stoat), but the stoat scat is given as 2% (1 of 25 is 4%). The Discussion says road kills rose to 22% of records in the late 20th century; Table 1 gives 15 of 70 (21%) for 1995-2004. In Table 1, the “Total No.” row shows “28” in the shot and trapped average column, which does not match the other figures.
- **Data type:** Existing data: 169 historical records, 1850 to 2004, from published sources, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, estate records, naturalists’ records, museums and media appeals. New field data: scat surveys at 57 forest sites, 28 September to 18 November 2004.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

Pine martens were once believed to be widespread in Britain and Ireland, but loss of forest and persecution shrank their range. In Northern Ireland, little was known about where they lived, past or present. The authors set out to check the historical records rather than to map the species’ full distribution.

- Historical records. They gathered records of pine martens from published sources, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, estate records, naturalists, museums and appeals through the media. They removed duplicates (the same shot animal was often reported in several journals) and sorted the records by type (trapped or shot, sighting, scat, road kill), by time period, and by time of year.

- Scat surveys (autumn 2004). They chose 57 forests with clusters of historical records, or near them, that had tracks or roads to walk. Pine martens are known to mark their territories with scats along such routes. At each site they walked a transect of 1 to 3 kilometres and identified suspected pine marten scats in the field by their appearance and where they were placed, using published descriptions.

### 2. What they found

Historical records

- They found 169 records covering 1850 to 2004.

- Most 1800s records were of martens trapped, shot or snared, mostly on sporting estates (25 shot or trapped out of 31 records for 1850-1899).

- Martens killed by people declined between 1960 and 1994, but the yearly average for 1995-2004 was similar to 1850-1899.

- Sightings rose steadily from the early 1900s (47 sightings in 1995-2004), and so did road kills (none before 1960, 15 in 1995-2004).

- Of the 121 records with a date, most sightings were in late spring and early summer, though martens were seen all year.

Scat surveys

- At 20 of the 57 sites (35%), the team found 25 scats: 12 attributed to pine marten, 12 to red fox and 1 to stoat.

- Pine marten scats were found at 11 sites (Table 2): 6 of 12 sites in Fermanagh (50%), 3 of 9 in Tyrone (33%), 1 of 13 in Antrim and 1 of 14 in Down (7% each), and none in Armagh (2 sites) or Londonderry (7 sites).

- Pine marten scats were found at only 1 of 20 locations where martens had been recorded in the 1800s.

- The paper gives slightly different site totals in different places (see detailed keywords).

### 3. What they concluded

- Pine martens were more widespread in Northern Ireland in the 1800s than now, and their range has contracted. Game-keeping on sporting estates likely harmed the population, and the decline of those estates may explain why records fell in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

- The threats have changed: trapping by gamekeepers has declined, and road kills now appear to be one of the greatest threats. Dispersing martens would be most at risk, which could add to the effects of habitat fragmentation.

- Fermanagh and Tyrone remain strongholds. Fermanagh may be comparable in marten activity to Scotland. Overall, the scat results for Northern Ireland look similar to the rest of Ireland but low compared with Scotland. The authors caution that their sites were chosen for their historical records, so direct comparisons with random surveys may mislead.

- More records in summer may reflect martens being less active and more nocturnal in winter, but could also reflect people being out more in summer.

- Because martens may mark less in winter, the autumn timing may have reduced the number of scats found. Anecdotal evidence suggests martens still live in some places where no scats were found.

- Scat surveys alone need careful interpretation, because surveyor error is high where martens are scarce.

### 4. How tracking was or was not used

The survey relied on scat identification. Surveyors walked forest tracks and roads looking for scats and identified pine marten scats in the field by their appearance and placement, following published descriptions. Scats from red fox and stoat were also recognised. No genetic check of the scats was made. The authors point out that in another study (Davison et al. 2002), scats identified by experienced surveyors as pine marten were often fox where martens were rare, and in England and Wales 97% of scats thought to be pine marten were not. Historical records also included scats.

### 5. Tracker or observer certification

Not reported. The paper does not say who identified the scats or how experienced they were; two people are thanked for help with fieldwork. This matters because all the survey results rest on field identification of scats, which the authors themselves say can be unreliable where martens are scarce.

### 7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

- Road kills may affect the long-term survival of pine martens in Northern Ireland, especially dispersing animals, and may add to the effects of habitat fragmentation on this and other mammals.

- Pine martens may not have survived in significant numbers in Counties Londonderry and Armagh.

- Future work could add genetic identification of scats or hair-snagging devices, which would be especially useful where there is anecdotal evidence of martens but few or no scats are found.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- Fox and pine marten scats can look alike, and this paper attributed half of the scats found to each. Without a check of the observers’ skill or a genetic test, the marten results are hard to judge, which shows why testing the people who identify scats matters in surveys like this.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: The status of pine martens Martes martes (L.) in Northern Ireland, 1850-2004 (Tosh and Preston et al., 2007). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2007-tosh-preston-status-pine-martens-martes/