Wildcats, Old Foxes and Why Do Museums Exist?

Just to update on the wildcats. Yesterday I received a book that leaves me in absolutely no doubt what-so-ever that the English wildcat did not die out in the 19th century but hung on in some parts of the country until just prior to World War 1 and other areas until the 1920s and 1930s and it is possible that in some very remote areas they last past 1940.

As with The Red Paper: Canids (2010) which re-wrote the history of British foxes and other canids, so the current work is going to re-write the history pof the wildcat. I don't have an ego and just stick to facts and having considered the matter for a good while that is quite an accurate statement.

When asking both small, medium sized and national museums about wildcats the responses are all the same: only Scottish wildcats if any and all post 1900. Yes, because they were 'vermin' the felicide continued even as the 'sportsmen' were noting how the numbers were decreasing and that it looked as though the cat might become extinct. And all without fail have the Museum Specimen type.

The same applies to Old type foxes -the Greyhound/Hill or mastiff/bulldog and cur or common fox. Nothing. Just a few masks (heads) or post 1900 specimens. 

Let me put this into perspective: museums were paying top money or fawning over some gent or lady donating a specimen of any animal but for our pursoses let's say leopards, lions, pumas et al.  They were exotic and an attraction and if such-and-such a museum had one well, what would people think of some little climber curator's own museum if he did not have a better specimen? This was not about learning or education. This was about putting on a "respectable" show without the smell and dirt of the travelling menageries (which I could write a book about but don't panic -not here!).

"Thinking 'bout donatin' the blasted tiger I got in Bengal to the Umpty Museum!"

"Oh, but Colonel Fartarson we could make your magnificent trophy a far better show -perhaps even a brass plaque thanking you for the donation-?"

Go to a museum with old specimens and you'll see the brass plaques!

If you go into the stores of any big museum you will see, safely under plastic sheeting like some 1980s collectible toy, many things from full taxidermies to skulls and skeletons that have never been put on display as they are hoarded -"We don't have the room". I visited Bristol City Museum since a child and in the decades sinvce the Natural History section has never changed. When I went into the museum store I could  hardly breathe at what was in it -including specimens the museum didn't know it had including a lynx I found there in 1988. This would be the same all around the country.

But where are the native animals killed off in their thousands? Buckland the famous naturalist (ie 'sportsman') noted how some gentlemen required proof that their gamekeepers had been doing the job they were paid for and not slacking. For this reason any birds or mammals killed were strung up outside the gamekeepers house or inside. Buckland noted (for a short period of 'work') the heads of fifty (50) nailed up on the wall. Every gamekeeper would have similar proof of a "job well done". Shot, snared or killed any way the keepers wanted.

Felicide was in full swing so why is it that all the museums only have Scottish wildcats not English (native) ones?  Well, Buckland again notes that he suspected that the reason keepers had such good fruit and vegetable crops was because of "the nutrition the soil was getting" -wildcats and other animals making good fertiliser and that included any wandering pet dog or cat that annoyed the gamekeeper (there was a reason many were disliked locally). The cats were 'vermin' (that word used by pro hunt folk which is nonsensical but they feel justifies their killing). Who wants a display of 'vermin'? But the Scottish wildcat looked "magnificent" and only the ones that conformed to what the major museums had as anything else would be "poor grade".

There may well exist stuffed specimens in some old English country house or cottage or private collection elsewhere and though they are of no great financial value they are important historically. Why would Bristol, Cardiff or any other English museum pay top money for a Scottish wildcat when they were to be found locally?  Thousands were killed year in and year out and some used by hunts for trail scenting. But we have lost good quality specimens that might educate people on what we had.

With foxes the same applies.  We have learnt what they may have looked like and very few would have made it to being full taxidermy specimens.  The "Break up of the hunt" has been a much misconstrued phrase like "bagged fox" to a degree. The break up usually involved the huntsman treeing a fox -holding it over a branch or far up out of the reach of the hounds. A foot was cut off and often the tail. The hounds then in a state of hunger and frenzy were thrown the live fox as the huntsman scream "Tear it up! Tear it up!" like a maniac -the old literature describes this as accurate. Basically, the hungry hounds ate almost everything and on occasions even the tail and one hound would end up with the head. This means that unless the fox was grabbed and saved for mounting or display nothing was really left of it. This was the "English way" while further North and Scotland there was no "break up".

Others -despised by the hunts- snared or dug out and killed foxes for the fur. If there was a mange outbreak every single fox whether cub or adult whether looking unmanged or manged was killed without mercy and bodies burnt or buried.

That we have anything but modern New foxes is a miracle. The intention of myself and the British Canid Historical Society is simple: 

Firstly to find and study Old fox types and that will enable us to show the public what we lost.  

Secondly we need to pay closer attention to the physical look of the Old fox types and compare them to the New and we have already noted some differences.

Thirdly, we want to gather specimens so that DNA work can be carried out. It is my personal belief based on all that I have uncovered, that the Old fox was a unioque species having been separated from mainland Europe for millennia. 

We hope that this will then allow us to present for the historical record our three lost types of fox as well as information gleaned from historical sources and those are obscure but providing so much data.

No museum has a real display on the Old British fox -most curators are unaware that they even existed. No big museum displays on English or Welsh wildcats because, again, most museums are unaware that there were wildcats other than those in Scotland. Displays on anything other than the mammals we lost through human 'sport'.

Therefore, if I told you that there were museums with dedicated "hunting history" displays would you be surprised?

 The Hunting Museum, Melton Carnegie Museum in Melton Mowbray boasts that it is....

"Britain’s only hunting museum maintained by a local authority is on view within the Melton Carnegie Museum at Melton Mowbray.

"The opportunity for the museum came when the tourist office, which shared the former library building with the museum, moved out,   allowing for a £500,000 refurbishment, including a large focus on hunting, for the first time.

"The Museum of Hunting Trust raised £130,000 for the new museum;  the Heritage Lottery Fund contributed £370,000, Leicestershire County Council £20,000, Melton Borough Council £10,000 and the Friends of Leicester and Leicestershire Museums £1,000."

Yes, a museum dedicated to having wiped out Old British fox types, introduced and killed wolves, coyotes and jackals (documented) as well as killing pets and poultry for a few hundred years (but I doubt that will be in the description). Money from the Heritage Lottery Fund and local authorities. 

While, for 40 years every single penny going into the British Fox Study has come out of my own pocket. The BCHS gets no funding as it is not available for this type of work yet a museum dedicated to killing wildlife gets considerable funding.

Three fox groups alone on Face Book have over 30,000 members and £1,00 from each of them would certainly guarantee the work continuing yet...nothing.

This is the sad state of affairs we are in and I think it shows that the once proud claim that England is a nation of animal lovers is far from accurate.

If you care -donate and let's bring the Old fox and Wildcats back from obscurity and learn the lessons before it is again too late