WHY Are People So Condemning Of Work NOT Published?

I have heard a couple of nasty comments to the effect that I do not know what I am talking about when it comes to Scottish wildcats. My research has been called "amateur" and "dubious".

I now ought to point out that my work has not been published yet in any form. Are these people claiming to be from the future?

At the moment no UK publisher will touch my work for a very good reason: most have been earning money from peddling dogma published by people who have never carried out any historical research but crib (constantly) from modern sources.  I will give you an example.

In 1971 and later in 1980 there were two books by naturalists who knew 'everything' about wildlife so their books were accepted as were their words. In both cases (outlined in my book) the authors noted that they had "never seen one of these mythical giant foxes" -ie a Mountain or Greyhound fox which was larger than a coyote. They were all tall tales "of the one that got away".  

My first response to that is that these Old British foxes had been wiped out of existence by the 1860s so how on earth could these people have seen a Mountain fox?

My second response is that these "notables" were plain ignorant. Stupid even.  They had the ability to read and that is where the evidence lies. Written accounts are anecdotal evidence so you have to assess the credibility of the writers. From the 18th right up to the end of the 19th century the authors declaring that there were three types ("forms" would be a better word since as far as we know these were all of the fox species -yet to be determined through DNA study) of fox -the Mountain/Greyhound, the Mastiff/Hill and the Cur or common  fox.  Details about these are in the Red Paper 2022 Vol. 1 Canids (a vastly updated version of the 2010 edition). These people were naturalists and zoologists and not of the type we know today. They studied, made notes and got to know members of the animal kingdom: they they killed them as 'sportsmen'.

In many of their books and articles they report on how the Old fox types are declining as thousands were imported each year as replacements for their 'sport'. Good descriptions of the three types are given and even how different they were from the now New imported foxes. These are people who KNEW their animals and what is more were beyond reproach in their scientific work. Some produced excellent work that is worthy of praise but then you also read how they killed by shooting or through having dogs tear them to pieces 5-7 foxes a day -cubs and adults. All "jolly fun". 

Oh, we also have examples of Mountain foxes. We have probably the most famous Scottish mountain fox -a taxidermy in its cage and looking exactly as it does in a well known illustration from the early 1800s.  We also have the jackal, wolf and coyote masks (mounted heads) of animals kept and released and also bred by hunts for "better sport" and they have been clearly identified as such by more than one expert in the field studying the animals.

Perhaps if the "noted" authors actually did some research rather than "pop dogma" book writing they would have found all of this...but that requires work and I'm in my 50th year on the subject.

Then we come to the wild cat. People keep asking "Only Scotland had wild cats, though" which, again, shows poor wildlife education. The line "Wild cats in England were extinct by the 1600s" is possibly the grossest piece of misinformation going. Again, I started my study in 1980 (42 years ago) and -as with canids- that pulled in a lot of newspaper reports as well as books and journals from 1780 onward. The English wild cat was as large as its Scottish and Welsh brethren and was known (Thomas Pennant coined the name in the 1700s) as "The British Tiger".  I never understood why and if you look at fringe subjects such as cryptozoology they mention an "unknown large cat -a cryptid" that was the size of a tiger in the Highlands. Cryptozoologists tend to be even worse at research than some zoologists.

Baron Cuvier and others referred to the  large size of wild cats in Scotland and notes some measuring 3 feet (90cms) excluding tail and express the fact that they had never come face-to-face with the larger ones that were comparable in size to a puma or leopard. There was a reason why men would not take on a wild cat.  Again, all detailed in the book.

Wales and England had wild cats and in some areas they survived on into the 1930s and 1940s -documented again. In the late 19th century (when sources stated the wild cat was extinct in Wales) there are newspaper reports of them and in one case a hunter after a fox on a mountainside was attacked by "a huge wild cat" and injured badly. there are other cases.

Going back to the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries all the naturalists and learned zoologists declared that, if not for feral domestic cats the wild cat species would have "died out hundreds of years ago". There were the pure bred wild cats but these were declared extinct by the 1860s in a paper presented to zoologists and that conclusion was accepted. What we saw up until the late 19th century and in some areas in the 1920s were at least 3rd or fourth generation wild cats (hybrids with a high percentage of  true wild cat blood in them). These also continued on in England and Wales before the last ones were killed as part of the felicide campaign started many centuries earlier (for sport and financial gain -a bit like the fate of the thylacine once a bounty was placed on it).

Experts who knew a true wild cat from hybrids noted how most museums displayed hybrids as true wild cats and what makes a "genuine wild cat" today is almost the complete opposite of a true wild cat. The wild tabby has become the current version drawing in the money and, as with foxes, deer, hares and other animals that were wiped out by hunting in the past, there are plans to import European wild cats to replace the extinct ones. Why?

You replace and extinct species with one that has no connection to it but is the current "looks good" type from outside the UK. That is introducing a non native species to the UK and official policy on those types of animal is to kill them. Also, are game keepers and estate owners as well as 'sporty' types going to stop shooting a newly introduced wild cat when they can just shrug and say "Thought it was a hybrid" (which they are allowed to kill freely. Introduce a species to see it wiped out again?

So there are plenty of sources for the cat book and, oh yes, we have taxidermy samples as well as photographs of such, dating back to the early 1800s and they bear no resemblance what-so-ever to the wild tabby.

The best reason I have had one of the books rejected was that it had a "conversational" style. Most books do unless they are dry and over technical. My books are designed to educate people and that means to explain without using (but if I do I explain) over technical terms. For the naturalist and zoologist there is everything needed for peer review: not just one but two to three reference sources (in fact any and all information is fully referenced so that others can continue or critique the work) and rather than write "According to Dr H this can be ruled out" I give the exact quote because being ambiguous is no good. And also it means that I cannot be accused of misquoting.

A publisher likes to fob off a manuscript review to one of its authors who "has experience in this subject" well: (1) if there is a naturalist who has studied canids and felids for 50 years like me I have never heard of him/her. In other words there is no one with the experience or knowledge to assess the work and they will also not go all out double checking sources. (2) established wildlife writers are NOT going to write "OMG -we've been earning a living off false information for decades!"  (3) I have experience (a lot of it) with publishers readers taking material from submitted manuscripts and using it as their own work: there is no come back on that either and 50 years work stolen is not something I want to see.

We have the taxidermy, photographs as well as every and any reference source you could ever want to double check. If a publisher cannot accept the evidence presented then really they are not that good. It means that, once again, I will need to self publish and before anyone asks -yes, I have tried European and American publishers.

Ignore those who criticise unpublished work that has not been posted anywhere but do question their reasons, their motives,  for wanting to slap down serious and fully referenced work that is important to British natural history. Oh, and ignore those who say that there was never an Irish wild cat -we have the evidence that there was.