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The search for scats

Pine marten (c) Terry Whittaker/2020VISION

Keeping track of elusive mammals like pine martens can be tricky, but they do leave clues whenever they pause for a poo.

Like other mustelids, for martens this call of nature is about more than just relief. Pine marten poo, or scats as we call them, are a useful way of letting other martens know they’re around, that this patch is theirs, and that you should keep away. With that in mind, martens are tactical in where they choose to leave their mark.

For the smelly signal to carry far and wide, pine martens often select raised points on rocks or logs. This is quite convenient for our survey team, as these conspicuous calling cards can be relatively easy to find. At this time of year, our volunteers are heading out to do just that, walking forest tracks in search of some fresh scats. These surveys are important to help us establish where the martens are now.

Pine marten (c) Terry Whittaker

Pine marten (c) Terry Whittaker

Distinctive droppings

But how do we know it’s a pine marten scat? With plenty of other wildlife in the Forest, and dog walkers using these areas regularly too, it can be tricky to work out who did the poo. Thankfully, pine marten scat has a few distinctive features that help us to identify it. 

Firstly, a good scat - affectionately referred to as a ‘moist classic’ - bares a characteristically kinked shape, owing to the pine martens’ peculiar custom of wiggling their bum as they deposit. Scats are slender, around 1cm wide, with a length varying between 4 and 12cm. If in doubt, just think about whether the poo you’re looking at could’ve come from a cat-sized pine marten.

Smell can be useful too. You’ll often hear the scent of a marten scat referred to as “not unpleasant”. They were once referred to as sweet marts - though I grant you that is perhaps generous. We are still talking about poo here. It’s scent has been compared to wet hay, damp fur (which it often contains) and even Parma Violets! At the very least, it’s unlikely to make you recoil as dog or fox droppings would.

A young pine marten (Martes martes) on fallen pine log in woodland

Pine marten © Mark Hamblin/2020VISION

Clues in the poos

The colour and contents of scats vary both geographically and seasonally, and depend, as you might expect, on what the marten been eating. Their diet is broad, including small mammals, birds, insects, eggs and berries. Often visible are the hard, indigestible parts of the marten’s latest dinner, including bones and teeth of small mammals or the seeds of fruiting plants come late summer, when scats can take on the dark colour of blackberries or the orange hue of rowan. 

We can analyse scats to find out more about what exactly they’ve been eating locally, further helping us to build a picture not just of where the martens are, but what they’re up to. So when you’re out and about in the Forest, keep an eye out for scats, and don’t be afraid to give them a sniff for science!

Watch Moving Martens

In this short documentary we cover more details about the importance of scat surveys, whilst highlighting the reintroduction of pine martens to the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley.

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