On Lack of Funding, DNA Work and Research

 

For more than twenty years (I think 24 years) I have submitted forms for grants from the EU to continue the fox work and as The British Fox and Wild Canids Study is the only body dealing with fox research and study you might think I might get some success.  Unfortunately, grants only go out to selective people/groups who meet the current trend criteria.

I am a white male over 30 so that is an automatic "no". Even though my DNA is 52% German and 7.3% French which over rides my 16% English pulling the "I'm European"  card does not help!

In 50 years I have spent far more on the research than I would like to think about. There is no funding for fox research in the UK where foxes are treated like badgers as "dirty mammals" the fate of which no one really cares about (the joke of badgers being a "protected species" is well known).

The work in identifying and getting all of the evidence to reveal the true Old British foxes hunted to extinction, the Old wild cats and so on has been costly. Why did badgers survive the campaigns of melecide when felicide and vulpicide succeeded? I found out why.  All with no support.

In 2017 I added a PayPal donation button to the old blog but when a Blogger "hiccup" saw that blog go I had to start from scratch again in 2021 -I added the donation button again. Old blog and new blog there have never been any donations which really signifies how interested people in the UK are in native species -if they are social media "Like" photo opportunities then they are interested

I think that the Fox Deaths Study report being officially suppressed (and, no, neither I or anyone I have discussed this with can make any sense out of that) and I still have the threat of future actions against me hanging over my head.

We need Old Fox and Old wild cat DNA carried out but no UK labs are interested let alone willing to offer their services for free (there would be the possibility of technical papers but "just foxes" I suppose).

The Red Papers were supposed to be works that would at least bring in  money to continue the research work but like even the  smaller papers -no interest. Again, I spent a LOT of money ordering copies and sending them out to zoologists and organisations that should be interested but not a single response.

In short, the UK is not the place to carry out research and 50 years of long term fox research has achieved nothing other than bankrupting me!  So when someone does ask when I am going to post more updated research I am sorry to say that will not be a regular thing because this is a free to view blog (I declined the pay to read option) and quite honestly everything in both Red Papers is fully referenced and if you have a copy you will find out so much that you will not be told in the dogma that are modern wildlife books.

Without sponsors/donators the work hits stumbling blocks. 

Cat Hunting and the Ignorance of Institutions

 My colleague, LM, forwarded a receipt from top taxidermist Roland Ward. The receipt is for the stuffing and mounting of a wild cat. There were literally hundreds of these cats killed, stuffed and mounted because it was a 'fun' trophy.

Date is January 1908 so at a time when 'sportsmen' KNEW the population was going extinct.

People still do not seem to want to believe that 'sportsmen' hunted wild cats. It goes "against the British grain" (the British wiped out so much wildlife for profit and 'fun'!). The historical records are on this blog as well as The Red Paper 2022 Felids.

The last known Scottish wild cats were wiped out ion the 1860s at the same time as the Old fox and squirrels and others.  What happened after extinction -why do we still have wild cats? Firstly, as with every other species killed into extinction the 'sport' just HAD to continue;. Importing foxes, deer, squirrels (red) and wild cats was the answer. In The Red Paper I note how I was casually reading a wildlife book and a line made no sense. I re-read it. The, uh, 'sportsman' in question had shot a cat in the North of England and sent it to a taxidermist-in the 1930s when wild cats in England and Wales were supposedly extinct "It was of the type found in the Scottish Highlands".

It made no sense but I also knew of wild cats shot during the same period in Shropshire and elsewhere -and there were hybrids. My assumption was that these were remnants of old wild cat populations even if more widely spread than I expected. When I read that another 'sportsman' had previously shot a similar cat "I just threw it over a low tree branch and carried on" I had a lot of questions.  Then it turned out that both had stated elsewhere that they had purchased licences to shoot on the hunting territory.  Not far outside this territory two other cats had been shot previously.

Once Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had made Scotland a Royal holiday spot the Scottish craze went berserk. Hey, Albert had shot a Scottish wild cat so everyone wanted to shoot one and every museum wanted a wild cat that looked exactly like the one Albert shot. Many were killed and sent to museums post 1900 and were rejected as "not being to type" -this was the Victorian era and rather like dog breeds the wild cat was designated to have very specific features  (variance was frowned on). That type is still accepted by museums and zoologists/naturalists who have carried out no real research work.  Try to find a museum with a pre 1900 wild cat taxidermy. I tried every museum including the Natural History Museum (London) -none exist  rather like pre 1900 fox taxidermy.

Even at the end of the b19th and into the early 20th century, naturalists and zoologists who knew what a wild cat looked like noted how not one museum they visited had a genuine wild cat -just hybrids.

Hunting territories were pieces of land that were "stocked for sport" and it seems that the North of England territory was stocking up on wild cats to release to be shot. These were hybrids of European wild cats which is what we see today. Wild cats but not the Old type we used to have that could kill hunting dogs and seriously savage a hunter if cornered. You cannot bring back an extinct species especially when you do not even know what it looked like that is a miracle beyond DNA because so far no one has shown interest in taking DNA samples from genuine Old cat taxidermy!

When you look at where the specimens from the 1900-1943 period came from you see a pattern and that pattern shows release for hunting on estates or profitable shooting territories.

The history of wildlife in the United Kingdom and how humans -and only humans- saw to their decline and extinction through uncaring cruelty even when fully aware of that fact must never be brushed under the carpet while we falsely preach conservation and criticise and talk down to poorer countries about their lack of caring for wildlife and conservation.

Extinctions are still occurring in the UK in 2025

Old British Fox Print

  I had to print (small) then scan at 600 dpi to make this better.

From Bristish Field Sports 1870 (p. 392) and if this is accurate it shows an Old fox type.