Pine marten

LIVING HABITS

The pine marten feels most at home in old uninhabited conifer forests. There it hunts for small mammals and birds, frogs and insects, and may also eat berries and carrion. Like other members of the weasel family, pine martens are solitary and purely night-active. When searching for food, the pine marten both travels on the ground and climbs nimbly in trees. Its nest hole is often in a tree as well; an old black woodpecker hole or a squirrel nest suits it just as well as a natural hole. The pine marten breeds in all of Finland, except the mountain areas.

PROTECTION

The pine marten was hunted to near extinction in the first decades of the 1900’s, but the population has later rebounded. Nowadays the pine marten is a game animal, and the annual quarry is about 15 000-20 000 individuals.

ADAPTING TO THE WINTER

The pine marten sheds its fur into a thick one for the winter. It is hunted for its fur even today. Its pads of the paws have thick papillae in the winter. The pine marten, particularly in Lapland, knows the isolative qualities of the snow, and likes to stay in a hole of a rock or under a fallen tree resting during the day.