Local conservationists have installed what will be the first of a number of breeding boxes for the elusive pine marten in the Belfast Hills.
 
The initiative is being spearheaded by 23-year-old Ballymurphy man, Aaron Kelly, who recently made the ground-breaking discovery of a colony of the rare mammal in the Belfast Hill.
 
Pine martens are native to Ireland but had become extinct in most parts of the island by the 20th century due to hunting, loss of habitat, and poisoning.

Aaron and his friend Conor Smyth spotted pine martens, using strategically placed night-vision camera traps.

On Saturday, Aaron and a group of friends set up the first of the breeding boxes made by his father, Sammy Kelly.
 
He said the boxes could help more of the pine marten young, known as kits, to survive.
“The thing is with these areas there are not enough crevices that would be suitable for them to breed,” he said.
 
“There are some, but not much as you would like because of the lack of plants and trees.

“We’re going to be starting to plant soon, hopefully by this summer, but in the meantime we want to get breeding boxes set up around these sites to give them more areas to breed. With the boxes they don’t have threats that other areas would have, so a pine marten usually has about five kits, but you’re probably going to get four surviving rather than three.”
 
Building on the success of Aaron and his friends’ efforts, the Belfast Hills Partnership plans to carry out a survey of the local pine marten population.
 
“Having these boxes set out and getting the pine martens attracted to them will make it easier to research the population,” Aaron said.
 
“If we know where their dens are then it means we can capture images of them and make sure we know the size of the population.”
 
The discovery of the pine marten in the Belfast Hills is encouraging and exciting news for the area. However, with many more people enjoying our natural sites during lockdown, many keen to grab that picturesque snap for social media, Aaron said it’s important we play our part to protect the mainly nocturnal pine marten.
 
“People going up at night-time or going up at 5 o’clock in the morning for a photo at sunrise, all of that type of stuff is horrible for them,” he explained.
 
“The hills are not getting a chance to breathe.
 
“People are going up at all hours of the night when these animals should have a free roam of it.”