Remember the Pine Marten….

The pine marten is a very beautiful mammal that sadly is so rare it is on the verge of extinction. Have you heard of it?

It is a creature that walks by night, often flitting high up through the trees which provide its shelter. Coming from the weasel family it is the size of a domestic cat, dark-haired with a bushy tail and pointed ears, with a distinctive cream bib below its neck. It survives still in other parts of Europe but loss of habitat and persecution by gamekeepers and farmers make it almost a vanished species in the UK.

I heard a talk about the pine marten last night from the Vincent Wildlife Trust, an organisation dedicated to the preservation and welfare of mammals, and learned much. It was held in a small village hall in the middle of nowhere in mid-Wales, and it was wonderful to see it filled with people who had come often from afar to learn about an animal we are unlikely ever to see but which everyone there wished, clearly, to help in its survival. Wild life experts were there too from the world of flowers and trees and lichens, birds, insects and bats, all interested and contributing information and views.

Last night there was nothing but concentrated attention on the world of nature: the world of political scandal and economic woes did not exist, just a community coming together united in concern and compassion and a wish to help all vulnerable creatures, not just the pine marten, of which man is the fallible guardian.

I am sure that all of us who were there last night will have left, as I did, looking up to the trees to see if a small cat-like animal was moving through them, and watching the lanes in case one ran across, lit up in the headlights, in search of a mouse. I learned much about the pine marten, but even more about the community in which I have the good fortune to live, and its values rooted in heart and soul.