Research Will Never Make You Rich...Just Poor!

 

I come from a rather old fashioned background where you never discuss money but make do with what you have.

Unfortunately, when it comes to research money does make the difference. I started the Fox Study in 1976 and shortly after the Feral and Hybrid Cat Study. I hate to admit it but that is 45 years and in that time every penny spent has come "out of pocket" and added to the money spent on the Exotic Animals Register (EAR)...well, let's just say none of it has made me any money.

While some consultants milked every penny they could from bodies such as the police my time and work were given free of charge.

Over the years there have been opportunities to make very good money- newspapers at one time offered substantial payments for information and maps on "exotic cats" in the UK. I had already been alerted that hunters were being paid by newspapers and to breach confidentiality as well as cause potential harm to animals was out of the question. In 45 years no confidentiality has been breached and no animal territory has ever been identified and I am proud of that. Proud and poor!

Wildcats and ferals as well as fox research attracts no money even for a "noted naturalist" and my working day can be up to 16 hours long and since June of 2021 and the investigation of fox deaths in the City and County of Bristol those hours have been daily and there has been far more gpoing on behind the scenes than you can imagine as it took four solid months of arguing to get post mortems approved.

Research is not as cheap as you might think. The current new work on foxes contained in a Lever archfile runs to a few hundred pages and similar for current cat work. Chasing up historical evidence is also costly (roughly a couple hundred pounds since June).

Some seven years ago I installed a Paypal button for donations  and to date...donations are more leusive than British pumas!  Not many people want to donate when there is nothing of great note in return other than supporting research.

For this reason work is currently 5 months behind.  But research will continue though whether I will complete it in the time alloted me I have no idea. To date all possible avenues for funding have drawn blanks and no one is that interested in foxes. So unless a millionaire who is crazy about foxes decides to back the work (which seems very unlikely) I will keep plodding away.