This all sounds horribly familiar.
A short article appeared on the BBC News website on 5 August 2025 as follows:
The disappearance of two tracked pine martens is being treated as suspicious, police said.
Cumbria Police and South Cumbria Pine Marten Recovery Project are appealing for information to help trace the rare animals that were released near Grizedale Forest earlier this year.
It is believed one of the mammals has two dependent kits.
Tracking them is part of a University of Cumbria-led scheme to reintroduce the species to south Cumbria and the loss “could compromise their recovery”, Cumbria Police said.
Pine martens are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and it is an offence to intentionally or recklessly kill, injure or take them.
It is also an offence to damage their habitat.
Anyone with information has been urged to contact the force.
ENDS
The South Cumbria Pine Marten Recovery Project is a dynamic regional partnership led by the University of Cumbria and includes the Upper Duddon Landscape Recovery Project led by the University of Leeds, Natural England, Cumbria Wildlife Trust, Lake District National Park Authority, Forestry England and the Graythwaite Estate.
The Project is translocating Pine Martens from Scotland to south Cumbria as part of a coordinated national recovery scheme for this species.
Released Pine Martens are fitted with VHF-radio collars for tracking, and the team also uses camera traps, den boxes and scat analysis for monitoring.
Stand by to read the usual excuses for these suspicious disappearances, from the usual suspects – windfarms, faulty tags, it’s all a set up by anti-game-shooting extremists, the Pine Martens never existed in the first place, tag data serve no other purpose than to entrap gamekeepers etc etc.
Raptor Persecution UK 
And as long as gamekeepers are allowed to trap and kill native mustelids, you are going to get accidental deaths of other species
Hahaha yeah right, of course this was accidental…
May be they will reconsider introducing these to that area. I think that they would be safer left in the Scottish Highlands.
Frances: I think the answer is removing gamekeepers and other individuals involved in shooting from the landscape, not stopping reintroductions of species that were extirpated by gamekeepers and other individuals involved in shooting.
Pine martens may well be protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, but that means absolutely nothing to animal murderers who wish rid of them. They act with total impunity anyway, so they really don’t think, or even bother, about the consequences knowing that, far more than likely, they’ll get away with it. Just as they do with the disappearance of so many of our precious raptors and other wildlife for which, in my opinion, they are guilty of too.
The various agencies trying to protect them just need to be able to catch these people in the act, but sadly that is highly unlikely, being so stretched with limited staff and resource and the vast areas that need protecting.
Maybe, with luck, someone will get caught on a camera trap with evidence enough to be able to prosecute.
But we still need far stronger penalties rather than the usual slap-on-the-wrist that seem to be the norm for anyone attacking our wildlife. Our judiciary is far too weak and unwilling to give far heavier sentences