One of my usual probably too long posts (I promise I will try to keep this short) and some links.
Firstly to the post on what the British Fox Study (it really ought to be changed to wild canids study but after all these decades I might get confused 😟) has achieved and that with no funding of any kind. I once tried to total up what I had spent on the work between 1976-1996 but seeing the preliminary figure panicked and decided not to proceed -I could have purchased a house is the best way to describe the amount.
Mystery canid reports from outside the UK I look into and some I have solved but after a lot of work. Considering that no museum was able to identify the extinct Hong Kong fox species I spent five years and finally identified it -one of the most viewed (but uncommented on) posts to date). The "Killer canids of Cavan" (Ireland) -solved. The persistent mystery of the "Great dog of Ennerdale" (1810) was suitably solved after a great deal of research -the latter two cases can be found, obviously, in The Red Paper 2022: Canids.
British Fox Study -Have We Achieved Anything?
Perhaps the biggest breakthroughs concern the Old British Foxes. As a young naturalist I heard from the more experienced field naturalists who studied old books and publications in the many decades before the internet (anyone born after 2000 who is now feeling on edge realising that cut and paste is not the only way to research please seek psychological assistance 😕) spoke of old fox types that were lost in the 19th century.
It is interesting to learn that from the 1960s on the attitude of authors was that "these are tall tales equivalent to the fisherman's 'one that got away'" And why? Because they had not seen such foxes. The ignorance shines through because it is evident that the spreading of dogma that today's "little red dog" is the fox we have always had is far easier to write about than going through the volumes of hunt and natural history books and publications and finding facts.
Even the 1950 post mortem examination of bones from a large (19lbs) fox killed in 1948 in Scotland was far too late and it was without doubt just a very large fox since it was clear that the Old fox type known as the Mountain or Greyhound fox was extinct by the 1860s (rather like the Scottish wildcat and red squirrel). Where was the evidence? I had traced the history of foxes in the UK and Ireland, something never done before, and I had all the information to make a strong case that would be impossible to challenge but it needed physical proof. No UK museum had any foxes from prior to 1900 (exactly the same with wild cats).
There was a book by the famous "naturalist/sportsman' John Colquhoun (The Moor and The Loch, 1841) wrote on what would be amongst the last of the Scottish wild cats that he had killed and this included an illustration. Likewise he noted on the "prime example of a mountain fox" that he had chased and killed in the early 1830s. There is an illustration in the book of this fox as well as the smaller type fox. I knew that some book illustrators were not the most accurate so I took it with a pinch of salt. Then, out of the blue, my colleague LM sent me photographs of the Colquhoun fox that was going to be sold. The illustration was actually 100% accurate. We both realised that the item would fetch far more than either of us could afford but LM put in a bid. She won with no competition! So we had a specimen of one of the last mountain foxes and it was big. See this post for a discussion
Some Thoughts On The Mountain Fox -Was It A Jackal or Coyote Like Canid?
We knew, it was a matter of historical record and fact that was reported on in hunt books, publications as well as newspaper items, that many thousands of foxes were imported from Europe to replenish hunting territories where foxes had been wiped out. We know that before this mass importation and unhygienic conditions the foxes were kept in, mange was not known in the UK which is a discovery in itself. Again, The Red Paper 2022: Canids goes into far more detailed (and fully referenced) detail. We also learnt about the kenneling and release of canids such as jackals, Coyotes and wolves for hunting in the UK and although the cost of buying such examples as mounted masks (heads) we do have the photographic record and experts in the field have identified the species. The Extinct Fox and Wild Cat Museum owned by LM has some great taxidermy examples.
The research has taught us much and LM has become very good at spotting certain characteristics in Old fox types. We also learnt that foxes were imported from Scandinavia that were "larger" and faster or as fast as the Mountain/greyhound fox. I contacted experts in Scandinavia and all they could offer was the suggestion that "these reports might be exaggerations" as they were "not aware of any large foxes" -this is exactly what I heard about the UK but it seems based on there being no well known sources to check -hunting books by "naturalist-sportsmen" are a good source. We know that the foxes were imported and reported on in newspaper items and by the 'sportsmen' themselves.
Swedish and Norwegian Foxes Were Imported Into The UK:What We Know
The other discovery, initially through old art examples, was that Western Europe probably had their own Old fox type. In fact, considering t5he Scandinavian situation it seems certain. The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) probably followed the various waves of human migrations from the East over centuries and as the Old foxes were killed off so the red took over.
National museums in Germany and France have been contacted and while Paris was just downright uncooperative nothing was heard from Berlin. This echoes the reactions )or non reactions) from the national museums in the UK. Is it just that continuing to push dogma is easier or just lack of interest in foxes?
We have discovered so much but not just about canids (two examples that should be of high historical interest to the French natural history museum were not really dismissed as given the attitude of "We don't really care"). There are the wild cats that we have proven did exist in Ireland up to the early 20th century. We have proven that the reason the current Scottish 'wild cat' has DNA similar to the European wild cats is because they were also imported -for travelling and static menageries and much more and we now know that some English hunting territories released these cats for shooting and we have the evidence.
The Colquhoun foxes are now in LMs museum and they and other examples look nothing like the wild tabby that was released and shot into extinction then protected, killed again and now being replaced by European wild cats! In fact, in 1897 a meeting of very learned Scottish naturalists and zoologists which included a man who had studied wild cats for over 40 years, declared that the true Scottish wild cat had become extinct circa the 1860s (as so many other species did). That is fact totally ignored by zoologists today who carry out no original historical research and the "Scottish 'wild cat'" is a big financial concern back by "reputable" experts who have a lot to lose in standing if the truth is promoted.
Obviously one thing we really want to do is carry out DNA studies on the wild cats and Old foxes we have but that is well beyond anything we can afford. Of course "just foxes" do not draw in financial backers or interest from DNA labs. We will try but currently -no funds.
The other thing we want to do is acquire more taxidermy examples of pre 1900 wild cats and foxes -the old the better. Not financially valuable but they are scientifically valuable and very important to completing our knowledge of lost British species and to educate and help people understand why current species in the UK need protecting not to head for extinction.
The idea of a short documentary on the subject is a good one, however, no one is really interested. We are providing a glimpse of species that humans wiped out just for the sake of 'fun' and knowing full well that the species' were heading to extinction (rather like the Hong Kong fox wiped out by British colonial 'sportsmen'). And we can see how the 'protected' British badger is being pushed into extinction "legally" with over a quarter of a million having been killed over very bad science and scape-goating for bovine TB.
We need to discover. We need to educate. And we need to preserve.
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