Become a Citizen Scientist: Report Pine Marten Sightings in Yorkshire

Discover the critical role of pine marten sightings in Yorkshire's conservation efforts and learn how to contribute to our cause by reporting your own encounters with these elusive creatures.

An often-overlooked yet valuable aspect of conservation efforts is sharing your own sightings of wildlife. This is something that anyone can do, and while it might seem like a small task, public submitted wildlife sightings can significantly impact conservation.

Wildlife sightings are especially important for the conservation of species that are rare, elusive, under threat, or recovering from past struggles to survive. By combining these observations with other monitoring efforts, conservationists can piece together a much clearer picture. They can learn about factors such as changes in wildlife populations over time, the distribution of a species across a landscape, habitat preferences, and even gain insights into the health of ecosystems. These understandings are the foundation of well-targeted conservation efforts.

Trail camera photo of a pine marten in a tree in Yorkshire

The importance of pine marten sightings

As a result of ongoing conservation, pine martens are now recovering in Britain, with the species gradually moving back into areas of its historic range. However, pine martens are still a rare sight in Yorkshire, so public reported sightings are an excellent source of information for building a clearer picture of pine marten presence across the region. Sightings reveal where pine martens have made it to, the habitats they’re using and where there are hotspots of pine marten activity based on clusters of multiple records.

Public sightings serve as building blocks for our conservation work through the Yorkshire Pine Marten Project. For example, they might inform future survey work with wildlife cameras in nearby woodlands to learn more about Yorkshire’s pine martens, or help us identify places for community engagement work to conserve the species. Submitting your pine marten sightings is an impactful way to support pine marten conservation as a citizen scientist.

Pine marten at Spurn National Nature Reserve, Yorkshire. Photo by Paul Willoughby.

How to report a pine marten sighting in Yorkshire

NatureSpy are currently collecting pine marten sightings in Yorkshire as part of the Yorkshire Pine Marten Project. For other counties, we advise searching online for local pine marten groups, or if that doesn’t exist for an area, submit a sighting via iRecord.

It’s quick and easy to submit a pine marten sighting in Yorkshire. Simply email us at enquiries@naturespy.org and include the following information:

• Location
• Date
• Approximate time

An easy way to share an accurate location is via What3Words, available as a web page and a free smartphone app. Find the area of your pine marten sighting on the What3Words map and click on it to reveal the 3 words that identify the location. Alternatively, a grid reference would be perfect for our records too.

Additional helpful information

The following details are also helpful if available:

• A photo or video of the pine marten.
• Description of the animal (e.g. approximate size, fur colour, fur markings, tail shape and colour)
• Description of behaviour (e.g. climbing, eating, crossed path)

Example of a three word location describing a 3x3m square on What3Words

Other signs of pine martens to look out for…

Pine martens live in small numbers across large areas, so it’s uncommon to find a field sign of a pine marten. For many species, dens or nests are often a clear sign of presence, however, pine martens den in trees or elevated cavities found in features like rock faces, so their dens are normally out of sight.

One field sign that people more often observe in Scotland is pine marten poo, also referred to as scat. Pine marten scat is distinctively curly and has a rather unique, almost-floral smell to it. They are sometimes mistaken for fox poo in appearance - although not normally in odour! As a territorial species, pine martens appear to treat forest tracks as prominent places to let other martens know of their presence via a carefully placed scat, so keep an eye out when you’re next wandering through a woodland!

Pine marten scat on a forest track in Scotland