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Boat of Garten Wildlife Group

Badger Feeding
A badger feeding

Badger in the snow
Badgers don't hibernate

Pine marten in a garden

Red Squirrel
Red squirrel

(Photo Bill Cuthbert)




Pine Martens

A hundred years ago pine martens all but died out in the UK but a few survived up in the far northwest of Scotland. Since then persecution has reduced and pine martens have made a spirited recovery right across the Scottish Highlands.

BoG-WiG has begun building nest boxes and installing them in the woods for these engaging animals. Pine martens are quite fussy about their nest sites and insist on them being thoroughly weatherproof - which is why they favour attics in houses. They do not make good lodgers - the smell and the mess they make is hard to live with - so a few well-built nest boxes in the woods will add to their options and so help keep them away from houses.

Red Squirrels

The introduction of the American grey squirrel spelled disaster for most of the UK's native red squirrels. The greys out-compete the reds for food and also pass diseases such as the parapox virus to the reds. Greys are imune to the virus and simply act as carriers.  BoG-WiG supports the Scottish Wildlife Trusts project Savng Scotland's Red Squirrels to help our remaining reds to survive and we also assisted the Highland Foundation for Wildlife project to create a new population by translocating red squirrels from Strathspey where they are plentiful into the north west Highlands where they had died out.


Estimates of wildcat numbers in Scotland vary but iIt is generally believed that there are only approximately 400 pure wildcats left.   The Cairngorms National Park conducted a survey using camera traps to bring the estimate up to date and BoGWiG submitted records from its own cameras to support the project.