We need DNA testing

 Since first posting this in July, 2023, I have had absolutely no interest shown by any lab carrying out DNA work. We have clearly identified Old fox types as well as Old wild cat types in the Extinct Fox and Wild Cat Museum going back to the 1830s so one might have thought it would be an excellent opportunity to carry out work that would re-write wildlife history in the UK -good publicity and a paper in it.

When I write "no interest shown" I mean that the project proposal was received by the labs but they chose to not even respond.  Sadly, for wildlife work, despite what you might hear, the UK is not the place to be. Considering that any findings might also reflect on European foxes and wild cats I did consider the possibility of contacting European labs working in DNA but I do wonder whether there would be the same reaction.

As there is absolutely no funding available to have DNA testing carried out we are at a limbo stage: we have the research and we have specimens of the animals but the next step of DNA testing is beyond our means.

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 The main question asked by some may be "Why are you so keen to have DNA work carried out?  That question requires a very long answer and really there is no space here, however, both Red Papers (Canid and Felid) put forward the need for DNA testing.

The map below shows the Doggerland connection made what is today the British Isles and Ireland part of Continental Europe. Prior to the flooding of the area humans and wildlife could move freely around. Once that land bridge flooded what was here was here and had to develop to the habitats on an island.

Once Ireland separated from Britain its wildlife and people also had to develop to the isolated environment.

Normally, it is assumed that large animals would develop "island dwarfism" so that they are smaller and fit into their environment better. This is looking at mainland Britain (before tribal then national boundaries) as though it is a very small, cramped place which is a mistake many tend to make.

Britain had ancient woodlands and forests which, despite modern claims, we have not restored.  Most forests these days get planted for one thing only -commercial timber. Back in time forests would have been the habitat of many animals and amongst those would have been wolves and there were plenty of prey species such as boar, deer, rabbits and so on.

Above: some areas we now know were the territories of the large Old British Greyhound/Mountain fox. This is currently being updated.

Wolves in Britain and Ireland were not affected by island dwarfism and the few remains studied shows that Old wolves on the two islands were large -in fact arctic wolf like in size. this was why the Irish bred the much acclaimed Irish wolf hounds so that they were large and fast enough to deal with wolves.

Forests were cut down and burnt simply to drive out wolves to kill/hunt and not simply for agriculture. It has to be accepted that people of that time were very destructive (not much changes) and to try to cleanse what was done by stating it was all for "agricultural development" is crass. Any other animals in the forests were driven out so also "good sport" (for the lords who demanded that some wolves be left alive for their 'enjoyment') or killed to claim financial bounties.

The few wolf remains that still exist have, as far as I can ascertain from museums, never been DNA tested -dated, yes, but no DNA samples. Wolves when killed were usually beheaded for decoration purposes or, commercially (and there was a massive trade of wolf skins coming from Ireland to England) the bodies were skinned and remains thrown into wolf pits of which there are many in England but none have been excavated which means that, where land not built over, there are literally thousands of wolf bones that would help in research.

Was the British-Irish wolf sub-species of the arctic wolf ? If the Irish wolf was separated from Britain it would also be a unique island species. It would be interesting and, natural history wise, important to find out.

We then have the British wild cat which, like the wolf, fox and badger were hunted for 'fun' and bounty profit. The evidence is that wild cats lasted longer in England and Wales than is believed with some very 'authoritative' inaccurate dates given for the species extinction. Hybrids in taxidermy are not that rare and if you have a hybrid then somewhere there had to be a genuine wild cat.

Zoologists and naturalists in Scotland were very clear in 1897 that the true Scottish wild cat had died out in the 1860s and this is backed up by taxidermy as well as other authoritative contemporary accounts including by the man who was the expert on wild cats at that time after 40 plus years of study.  

Even the specimens from the 1830s were not the true wild cat, or original wild cat, as for thousands of years the species had only been kept alive by inter-breeding with feral domestics with the best date for the start of this being the Roman period in Britain. The 1834 pair of wild cats shot by John Colquhoun and others for that period are themselves hybrids and unless we can find bones of pre-Roman period wild cat bones (unlikely?) we will never know true wild cat DNA. However, we do know that they had maintained their large size (dwarfing the current wild tabby) in some areas -including Wales in the late 19th century.

DNA testing would answer a lot of questions and possibly show which cat species the British wild cats interbred with (my hypothesis is that originally domesticated African wild cats).  We know that, despite the statements to the contrary, there was an Irish wild cat and they were seen and recorded by Irish naturalists. At some point European wild cats were introduced to Britain and even, based on testimony, Ireland. We do know that they were released into hunting areas to "repopulate" an area. Again, Red Paper Felids covers this in more detail. 

Then we come to the foxes. There was, mainly during the late 18th but more intensely during the 19th century, polite but angry notes and comments that the three types of foxes in Britain -the Greyhound/mountain, Mastiff and Cur- were not three different species but different types of foxes. Well, at the time some zoologists and naturalists believed that foxes and domestic foxes could mate. There was none of the technical knowledge we have today; if someone claimed in 2023 to have a genuine fox-domestic dog hybrid a simple DNA test would reveal the truth. Very few if any people were arguing that the three types of Old foxes were different species.

Some argued that mountain/greyhound foxes had certain areas it lived and survived in. There was food, water and plenty of areas to raise cubs in. It is now known after over four decades of study that the Mountain/Greyhound fox literally filled in the niche taken up in Europe by jackal and in the United States by the coyote. It was large and may have moved around in a way similar to coyotes. Today we would say that this fox had undergone adaption to live  in the environment it chose.

The same is true of the Mastiff  which may also have been known as Hill foxes which adapted to living on the hills and mountain slopes and only venturing down into lower land in bad winters when food was scarce.  The small cur fox had a symbiotic relationship with humans -the old food and waste dumped near villages and towns provided food discarded as well as food attracted -rats and mice.

Each of the types had undergone environmental adaption until their eventual extinction in, again, the 1860s (though a few very isolated Old foxes may have clung on a little longer in inaccessible areas) along with the Old red squirrel and other species. Even the famous naturalist-'sportsman' John Colquhoun realised and later wrote in his books that fauna he had killed off along with others were gone and he was very saddened by this.

DNA on these foxes would likely come back as Vulpes (same species) but of a unique island species.  With Ireland we have a problem. Firstly, we have found no examples of pre-1830s mountain fox taxidermy. There are probably some somewhere but people just do not know what they have and museums tend to have post 1900 foxes only. The second problem is that masters of various British hunts sent gift mountain foxes to Ireland for hunting. It would be necessary to eliminate which taxidermy (if we ever find any) was pre-imported mountain foxes and which were native to Ireland.

We know that certain areas of Ireland (I refer to the entire island not "Northern Ireland or Eire) were regarded as mountain fox territory and the locations crop up in many accounts of the time in newspapers and journals.

DNA could help answer questions.  Where DNA testing in modern times has been carried out in England the results are of European red fox. Really, the expensive testing is negated because it is a matter of public knowledge from the 1700s up to the early 1900s that thousands of foxes were imported from Europe each year to be sent to fox hunting territories and after at least four centuries it would be near impossible to not find European vulpes DNA. It has to be remembered that fur farms, etc., also release North America Red Foxes (NARF) and the traits from these are clearly seen in photographs of UK foxes today.

(c)2023 British Fox Study. Taken from the UK photo data base this fox has probably got North American Red Fox DNA and was of quite large size.

Just as we find European red squirrel DNA in British squirrels, certain deer and other 'native' animals it is because, having been wiped out and there being a need to continue the 'sport', thousands were caught in Europe and imported to the UK. The 17, 18th and 19th centuries saw a huge trade in importing animals both European as well as exotic from Asia, Africa and so on. Importing foxes, wild cats, etc was no problem; shorter journey, less expenditure on food and keep and straight off the ship and sold on.

Therefore we need to get much older examples of foxes and the older the wild cat specimen the better. We know where there are rare Old wolf remains so a DNA preliminary study ought to give us a lot of answers and then all the British wild life books will need to be re-written and dogma itself become extinct.

A ramble I know but I hope it explains why I keep saying and writing that we need DNA testing.