Pine Marten May Have Returned To Northern England - BBC

[hatrack]

The pine marten - declared extinct in England a decade ago - is making a comeback in North Yorkshire, wildlife experts believe.
New sightings on the edge of the North York Moors have prompted the Forestry Commission to set out feeding tubes to collect hair samples for DNA analysis.

They hope that bait - including the mammal's favourite jam sandwiches - will lure the animals into the tubes.

EDIT

The Forestry Commission has teamed up with the Moors National Park, Hull University and local conservationists to find conclusive evidence that pine martens have ventured south from their refuge in the Scottish highlands. Brian Walker, Forestry Commission biodiversity officer, said: "My gut feeling is that we do have pine martens in this part of North Yorkshire. "Over the years we've had many sightings, some cases of mistaken identity, but others very convincing. "One of these came in July when an experienced ornithologist and wildlife photographer saw a creature matching the description of a pine marten."

EDIT

It is believed the animals have returned because large areas of forest planted after the First World War have now reached maturity, providing new habitats which had been lost."

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/3953599.stm

[swag]

1. My goodness. A sliver of good environmental news.

Thank you.

In the sea of environmental gloom that we wade in daily, this is a bright spot.

[Philostopher]

2. That's pretty cool.

I wonder if they'd like me to ship them back several hundred British song sparrows, as well -- I hear they've pretty much disappeared out of the cities, or at least had back in the late nineties. I could ship them quite a few before it would make any impact on my neighborhood.

The biggest concern about the song sparrows was, of course, if there was some environmental poison that was doing away with them, or a new predator that would move on up the food chain. My thought is it's probably just the cumulative effect of years of poorly-controlled pollution, but I'm not an environmental scientist.


OT:
Just curious -- where did your screenname come from? I've known a few people over the years who used that phrase, just wondering where you ran on it.