Inside The Canids Book and Why Making It Easy for Anyone to Understand is Not Wrong

 

According to the publisher who rejected the Red Paper 2022 Canids Ms:

"Greater use of sub-headings would be useful. It has quite a bit of a conversational style in places, which isn’t a failing, just perhaps not a fit for us. There are, perhaps inevitably given the sources, a lot of long quotes."

My actual concern was that I had used too many sub-headings!  "Conversational style" is something I have come across before. Sir David Attenborough has managed to engage so many people because he has a "conversational" style. The late Sir David Bellamy had a similar style. It is used by some who disapprove of explaining complex issues and matters so that Mr Smith in the street understands. It is something frowned up as academics have their own little club and publications that are treated exclusively as theirs -whether they are funded by public money or not. The "unwashed" must not have access and if a problem  needs explaining technical jargon is used because it makes the academic seem to be a genius as it means nothing to the public. 

I was once the target of scathing attacks online because I explained a complicated matter in a way people could understand. The purpose of science should be -was supposed to be- the education of humanity and not the hoarding of knowledge for their own little club.

"Conversational style" I take as a compliment. I want to educate and inform not leave people thinking "He is an absolute genius -I never understood a word he said!"

The headings and why I used (obviously not enough) so many is explainable when you look at what is in the book.

A brief synopsis

When the Doggerland bridge flooded the British Isles became separated from

Continental Europe and its wildlife developed uniquely. The British Isles, for the purpose of this work includes Ireland, and isolated the wolves on both became what would be island species not affected by the usual island dwarfism. These wolves, after millennia became “unwanted” and forests and woodland was burnt down or cut down for the specific purpose of lupicide; the killing of every and any wolf –and there was a bounty for “a job well done”. The Ms looks at the history of the wolves, their persecution and what they might have looked at as well as how hunting ravaged the established eco system.

At the same time there also developed three unique island species of Old fox from the coyote-like Mountain or Greyhound fox (historical taxidermy compared to a coyote shows that the British fox was larger), the slightly smaller but robustly built Mastiff or Bulldog fox and the smaller Common or Cur fox –the latter like today’s red foxes had a symbiotic relationship with humans.

These canids were mainly ignored until it was decided that they could provide fur and meat and those things earn money. From that point onward, especially after all other game had been killed off, the fox (previously considered beneath the true huntsman to be bothered with) faced what writers over the centuries referred to as “vulpicide” –extermination through bounties paid, trapping or hunting simply for being a fox and reviled for sheep and poultry stealing that even hunters stated they were not doing in many cases (foxes killing and carrying off a full grown sheep was deemed impossible and a bounty set up in the 1800s to prove foxes did this is still unclaimed).

Hunters knew that they were hunting the “Old types” of fox to extinction and despite all the famous hunter-naturalist writers noting that the Old foxes were nearing extinction the hunts continued until by the late 1880s the Old were gone and replaced by the New –foxes imported by the thousands every year for the ‘sport’ of fox hunting and this importation also led the the UK seeing the appearance of mange (unknown before the importations).

The travelling British sportsmen, going on hunting holidays to the United States, and Europe, went hunting coyote, wolf and jackals, the latter something enjoyed by the Old Colonials. Many on returning to England wanted to bring a taste of of the chase and excitement of a much larger and cunning canid able to afford a longer chase (the most important aspect of the hunt) to “the good old country”. Wolves, jackals and coyotes were set up in hunting territories from where they could learn the lay of the land and provide good sport later. Some hunts even attempted to cross-breed foxes, jackals and Coyotes. And we have the taxidermy proof assessed by independent experts.

A great many taxidermy photographs (none seen in print before) from the 1800s up to the 1930s show what sellers who have no idea describe as “fox masks” (heads). Some of these I have sought expert opinions on and have been clearly identified as coyote and wolf while other are jackals. The importation and press coverage of the period of jackal and wolf hunts explains why so many incidents (again reported in the press) of jackals and wolves as well as coyotes are known for the 19th to 20th centuries -and we have the evidence.

Then there were the legendary –almost mythical– beasts; “The black beast of Edale”, “The killer canids of Cavan” and the “girt (great) dog of Ennerdale”. The press reports from the times as well as what we know today are used to show just what these animals were and in some cases solve the mysteries. The “wild dogs” and the number that lived in the British countryside are an aspect of canid history not looked at before and these wild living animals may have been the animals that were to blame for sheep killings rather than foxes.

In more recent times raccoon dogs and arctic foxes have appeared in the UK; some released for ‘sport’ (as with the arctic fox going back to the 1880s) while others are exotic escapees long since established in the countryside.

By admissions of hunts themselves (past and even present) this was all about fun and sport and nothing to do with “pest control”.

The Ms looks at the social history as well as the way in which humans have affected the eco system starting in the 1700s and the impact is still being felt today and, importantly, how we can and must behave to prevent further extinctions and protect past history for generations to come.

Fully referenced and containing maps and previously unseen photographs whether a layman interested in wildlife, a naturalist or zoologist this book is one you must read. This book re-writes British natural history.

Word count for Red Paper 2022 is 120, 827....that's a lot of typing...and when you consider the edits and re-edits I'd say the Ms has totalled up 130,00 words.

As for the various topics:

The Girt Dog of Ennerdale & Others 

The Girt Dog of Ennerdale -Hyena, Jackal or Other? 

Successors to the Girt Dog of Ennerdale 

Black Beast of Edale 

The Scottish Wolfdog or Wolfdogs 

Achill Wolves 

Foxes

A Very Brief History of fox Hunting 

How Many Foxes Are There And Are They A Threat? 

More On Fox Mortality 

The Great Scarcity and Early human Habituation? 

Old British foxes 

Anomalies In Foxes 

The New Fox Look 

Fox Addendum 

Arctic Foxes 

Raccoon Dogs 

Fox and Dog Hybrids 

Jackals 

The Killer Canids of Cavan 

The Vampire Sheep Killer 

The Dog-Fox Hybrid 

The Sevenoaks Jackal 

The Sandbach Jackal(s) 

Wolves (a History of British Wolves) 

The Dionard Wolf 

Wolves of France 

Showmen, Menageries & Wolves 

The Wolves of Peckham, South Shields and Essex 

“Mysterious Depradator” & Others 

The Hexham/Allendale Wolf 

Wolves in Ireland and Other Escapes 

Prairie Wolf/Coyote 

Conclusions and Comments 

Maps & Notes 

Diseases and Illnesses 

No one has ever covered the subject of canids in the UK and the island of Ireland in such detail and gathering information from as many sources as possible -historical books and papers by naturalists, zoologists and even hunters going back as far as possible. With the invaluable help of my colleague, LM, it was possible to gather examples of the Old type of canids that the book looks at. 

The deforestation is looked at as it was the most important destruction of the environment; forests and woodland destroyed -cut down or burnt simply to get to wolves. Wolves that were not even causing problems (though some had to be left for local lords to have their hunts) and we look at the evidence of what wolves in the British Isles looked like once Ireland became separated from mainland Britain the wolves there became another unique subspecies. I take a look at what remains there are of our old wolves and the various accounts of “the ‘last’ wolf killed”.

When boar and wolves were made extinct so attention turned to the Old foxes three variants (NOT three different species). What we see today are not the native fox of old but new, introduced species that were imported by the thousands each year from at least the 17^th century on as the native foxes died out -as noted and recorded in documents of the time. The history of foxes is looked at and how they fit into the eco system and also how they were persecuted even if they were nowhere near human habitation.

Old foxes; greyhound foxes were bigger, fiercer and wilder looking and may have had the same habits as coyotes -having a territory it covered from mountain, hills, forests as well as marshes. Very likely the greyhound/hill foxes the same and were more widespread -though it is noted some hill foxes were sent to other hunts in England as fox number declined again. Whether the descendents of these were the Devon and Cornwall hill foxes we have no idea but as the mountain fox was said to inhabit higher ground and only moving down in bad winters to find food. The Ms, using rare taxidermy, compares the old Greyhound fox with a coyote and the fox is much larger than the coyote.

White foxes and other colour variations existed and this, again, is prove with photographic evidence as is the question of some foxes having ringed tails. The practice of creating artificial dens for foxes on estates is looked at basically to raise foxes for hunts. This practice was also used to raise wolves, jackals and coyotes for hunts matter-of-factly reported in the press and hunting books at the time. The 1840s up to 1930s saw a number of publicised wolf appearances “out of nowhere” and this book solves what was never a “mystery”.

A look is taken at the jackal and coyote and how each had similarities to the Old fox and why they were chosen for hunting. The jackal was probably the most fox-like when it came to living alongside humans. The attempted breeding of fox-jackal hybrids as well as other crosses for hunting is also detailed.

Wild dogs (domestic dogs gone feral) in the UK is also looked at as it was for a very long period a big problem with some even living in packs. The Great Dog of Ennerdale was far from being a mystery beast and it’s activities and eventual death are detailed using archive sources. There were other wild dogs and some matched the Great Dog in local legend.

This is just some - a tiny fragment – of what the Ms contains and adding the unique maps and photographs never seen in print before it was designed to educate professional and amateur on the subject matter and be the definitive book on wild canids in the UK and once and for all push out the inaccurate dogma passed down from one generation to the next to0 a point that modern zoologists have no idea that there were three types of fox in the UK and certainly no museum (definitely not the Natural History Museum in London) has such a large collection of Old type foxes as the one owned by LM.

All of the above applies to the Red Paper 2022: Felids Ms which again destroys dogma and presents unique evidence and reveals for the first time what the original British wild cat looked like and irrefutable evidence that the true Scottish wild cat died out and was declared extinct by Scottish zoologists in 1897.

Quotes are necessary in both works because it is not professional to take a few words or a short paragraph out of original sources that puts it into perspective. I consulted books from the 18^th century and throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries and archives for pre 19^th century evidence. The quotations are there because it is not likely that anyone other than a person with a great deal of money will be able to get a hold of those sources and, again, I have spent since 1976 studying wild canids and foxes and dome of the quotes are from unpublished sources.

Long winded but I think it needed explaining. Whether the Canid or Felid Ms both are unique research never before carried out or published and are the basis for future research and study by others.