I have asked people who feed foxes whether they can get any fur or hairs from the foxes that visit and seal the samples in a plastic bag (or zip lok bag) and send them to me.
I was asked why "Isn't all fox fur the same?"One part of my research work on foxes is to try to see whether any of the Old Fox types survived or have their DNA in New Foxes -showing they interbred. As we cannot go out gathering DNA samples the easiest thing to get are the fur/hair samples that can be stored until a university or researcher with the equipment can take them and we get results from that.
When you ask "What are old foxes?" I can answer that by quoting from a 19th century fox 'sport' books written by one of the 'great men of the sport':
Q. Are there different breeds of foxes in different localities ?
A." There are what is termed the greyhound fox, which is like a Scotch-bred or moorland fox. Then there is the stub-bred fox, which is bred above ground. And lastly the terrier fox, which is of a smaller breed, but none the less shows as much sport as any other, and is often stouter."
There are various other names such as Hill fox or greyhound fox and even cur-fox. We do have "leggy" foxes which might be remnants of the Hill fox) and we certainly have short legged, stout foxes that may be cur fox remnants and that is why we need testing.
If you can get hair samples off of visiting foxes then just pop them in a plastic bag, seal it but make sure you include the name of the fox (if you have named it), date the sample was taken and location (NOT your address!). Then message me or email me to let me know the sample has been posted and if you have a photo of the fox in question please send that.
My (monitored) email is blacktowercg@hotmail.com and you can message me on this page or FB in general.
Thank you
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