OF course there is great excitement over confirmation of the presence of the pine marten in the North York Moors (D&S Times, August 11).

Understandably, the location of recent film footage of the creature is being kept secret, but I can state that around 30 years or so ago I spotted a pine marten in the woods at Nettledale, near Rievaulx.

I observed it moving among the undergrowth on the steep slope below me for about 100 yards before it disappeared behind dense brambles.

While the marten is to be warmly welcomed, the same can’t be said of a less elusive newcomer in the Moors. The gigantic seated man who has been thrust down amid the heather overlooking Westerdale on Castleton Rigg is an abomination.

Unlike other man-made features that punctuate the high moors – moorland crosses, boundary stones, even prominent landmarks like the Skelton Tower (a shooting box) or Capt Cook’s monument – this figure has no relevance to the history or culture of the Moors.

Presumably permission for the figure’s installation was given by the landowner. Was the national park authority complicit? If so it is sad indictment of its guardianship of this wild landscape. And if this lamentable misjudgement is compounded by allowing the 11-ft high figure to remain beyond its apparently-agreed tenure of five years you would have to question whether the national park authority is fit for purpose.

Harry Mead, Great Broughton