Post-release movement and habitat selection of translocated pine martens Martes martes

Monitoring post-release establishment and movement of animals is important in evaluating conservation translocations. We translocated 39 wild pine martens Martes martes (19 females, 20 males) from Scotland to Wales. We released them into forested areas with no conspecifics in 2015, followed by a second release in 2016, alongside the previously released animals. We used radio-tracking to describe post-release movement and habitat selection. Six martens (15%) were not re-encountered during the tracking period, of which four undertook long-distance dispersal. For the remaining individuals, we characterised two phases of movement, ‘exploration’ followed by ‘settlement’, that differed between releases. In the first release, martens remained in exploration phase for a mean of 14.5 days (SE=3.9 days) and settled at a mean distance of 8.7km (SE=1.8km) from release sites, whereas martens released in year two, alongside resident conspecifics, travelled away from release sites at a faster rate, se...