PINE MARTEN IN SOMERSET

One of the perennial questions asked by critics of cryptozoology, is "what animals predicted by cryptozoologists have actually been found?"  In 1996 I published a book called The Smaller Mystery Carnivores of the Westcountry which - amongst other things - presented evidence for a surviving population of pine martens in Devon and Somerset. Now - 17 years later - I have been proved right, and am quietly confident that other claims that I have made over the years will also eventually be substantiated. 

A confirmed sighting of a pine marten on Edington Moor has been reported to the Vincent Wildlife Trust (VWT) – the research charity which studies the wellbeing of British and Irish wild mammals.

According to the VWT, this is the first report of a Pine Marten in Somerset since human persecution resulted in the disappearance of the creatures from the whole of southern England by the end of the 18th century.

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   Photo by Vincent Wildlife Trust/Tony Braithwaite

"I was driving home from Burtle across Edington Moor with my daughter Sarah," said Neil Champken, who reported the sighting.

"We knew immediately that it was something that we had not seen before. It was a little larger than a stoat, with longer legs and neck, a long bushy tail and a pure black face," said Mr Champken – who is the owner of the Somerset Cider Vinegar Company and lives on the Poldens.

Read more: http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Confirmed-sighting-rare-pine-marten/story-16895542-detail/story.html#ixzz2mVrFAsmn 

Many thanks to Richard Muirhead for this news item. Also, by the way, the VWT claim is wrong: the species was meant to have been extinct here since the end of the nineteenth century.