Note that any use of the term "British Isles" is for geographic recognition. As wolves, like foxes, were present in Ireland before modern political divides it cannot constantly be referred to "Eire and Northern Ireland" and, after all, animals knew of no geographic boundaries. The canid (and felid) work has involved looking at populations not just on mainland Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) and Ireland (Eire/N. Ireland) but on islands (Guernsey, Jersey, etc) so this is all encompassed under the geographic term British Isles.
In this post I will be addressing certain questions and putting forward certain theories and I hope that at some point we can encourage labs to help out with DNA with "free time" testing. The same applies to Old Fox types and Old wild cats.
Apologies for a "Typical Hooper ramble"
Wolves in Britain -Scotland, Wales and England- were isolated as a species from Europe following the last ice age and the rising waters that led to Doggerland becoming the North sea and English Channel. We know wolves here did not suffer from island dwarfism and have been tentatively identified as being of arctic wolf type.
For over 10,000 years they developed and were likely a distinctive, obviously now extinct, sub-species.
Ireland became separated from mainland Britain and there is, again, plenty of contemporaneous accounts of the wolves being large and it was for this reason that the Irish bred the wolfhound to hunt and take down wolves. These hounds were so good at their work and became famous that a high price was paid for them by people in Britain.
Because Ireland was separated from Britain, which was separated from Continental Europe it is very likely that Irish wolves were also a developed sub species.
There are certain things that need to be referenced and these are dealt with in more detail in The Red Paper 2022 Vol. I: Canids and, yes, that involves foxes.We know that in Europe and Asia there were wolves, jackals and foxes so large, medium and small canids. In the Americas there are wolves, coyotes and foxes -again; large, medium and small canids. We saw very similar in the British Isles; wolves, greyhound foxes and foxes. That sounds odd until you realise that the Greyhound/Mountain fox was around the size of a coyote and some, based on taxidermy evidence, bigger. The Greyhound/Mountain fox filled in the niche that the coyote filled in the Americas and the jackal in Europe and Asia. There were Old type foxes in Europe but that is for other researchers to look into.
Why is this relevant? Simply because Ireland seems to have had the same situation with wolves, Mountain foxes and regular foxes. In fact the wolves were wiped out in mainland Britain and just like there so the same took place in Ireland and the mountain foxes on both islands were the next target for hunting and when Irish hunts killed off so many of the larger fox their pals in England sent them gift Mountain foxes for hunts. The wolf and the fox all have an interlocking history which, I suppose is not too surprising, they also share with badgers.
As far as I am aware, and I have checked with many museums, there is only one complete British wolf skeleton in existence. I am currently tracking down a possible Irish taxidermy and I believe some bones are still in a collection in Ireland.
Can DNA be used to tell us more? Well, hopefully and it would be nice to see such work carried out. That said, money for this type of work does not exist and all we could hope for is that some DNA lab offers free time testing. I am not a DNA expert but whether sub-species can be determined using this with relic bones I am not sure although it has been used to identify sub-species still living -Evaluating the Taxonomic Status of the Mexican Gray Wolf and the Red Wolf; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources; Board on Life Sciences; Committee on Assessing the Taxonomic Status of the Red Wolf and the Mexican Gray Wolf. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2019 Mar 28.
This is why we really need DNA experts. If wolves in Britain were sub-species of arctic wolves (Canis lupus arctos) as suggested by past scholars then those in England, Scotland and Wales would be one sub-species while those in Ireland another. The money has never been there to finance such work in the past or present and it is why it is important to once and for all get a true picture of these large canids.
Will the wolf ever be officially reintroduced to the UK and Eire?
Arctic wolf (c) 2023 respective copyright owner
No.
That is the straight forward and simple answer. It may seem jokey but people are still holding up the example of one bad apple in the wolf pack and what he did to a little girl's granny in a wooden hut. And, of course, there was the devastation caused by one wolf to the Three Pigs Ltd Construction company. These are stories we all grew up with and we were also told "That's what wolves do -they attack and kill". An example; look at how foxes are portrayed; as wolf-sized cat killers and baby attackers -down mainly to the yearly popping up of pro hunt people on Face Book groups who have all seen cats killed by a fox (and one who had it all recorded on CCTV but two foxes tearing her cat to pieces...as she watched from the window) spreading the stories and hunts faking "biggest fox ever" photos. One woman showed me a photo of her cat and sat next to it and eating from a food bowl was "a type of cat I've never seen before -do you know the type?" I told her: "It's a fox" and she was rather confused "It's smaller than my cat!" and she thought foxes were German Shepherd sized.
There are 'sportsmen' who go out in full cammo gear with expensive high power rifles with infra red scopes every night with the intention of hiding away to be able to shoot a cat sized animal and they posed like big game hunters. These people will even shoot clearly identified (wearing a collar) escaped pet foxes and joke about it and, if they used scopes for the throat shot they SAW the collar. They also shoot pet cats. These are the people who do not read books and still ask whether there are any locations they can find and shoot Mountain foxes and even looked at getting Mountain fox DNA so they could bring them back...to shoot. These people exist in mainland Britain and Ireland and there has been online discussions about how they could get past any reintroduction monitoring to "bag a wolf" if reintroduced.
Look at the protected species currently in the UK and some reintroduced that are killed for 'fun'. Badgers are protected and yet they are "killed to order" for taxidermists or simply 'fun'. There is a good reason why the locations of fox dens, badger setts as well as beaver and otter homes are kept secret.
Coyotes were living in Epping Forest up until the 1940s after being introduced there in the 19th century. The same for wolves and jackals. People were shocked to suddenly find them living in or around villages and one wolf even survived in a suburb in the 1800s. No people killed but rat and mouse populations went down and, sadly, the odd cat went missing the "big bad wolf" was the story the papers ran with.
Look at so called "rewilding groups" and the conversations on them. Rewilding Scotland should really be called "Let;s Not even Think About Rewilding" and someone mentions wolves or lynx being reintroduced and the whole paranoid, ill-educated tripe is literally poured from a cement mixer in response. We know from evidence and records that lynx may have survived into the late Middle Ages and there are even some who believe they survived much later. We know that lynx have been living wild and breeding in the UK and there has been no major ecological or wildlife damage. We have millions of deer from many species as well as millions of rabbits and, yes, the odd sheep may be taken but wildlife 'experts' do not look at that evidence as they have been brainwashed by dogma -"It's all silly fringe stuff"and so on.
We have those who just have a psychopathic need to kill anything and if they can get to be "the guy who shot that wolf" they will go for it. You cannot really keep the location of a small wolf pack quiet. They howl to communicate and declare it's their territory. Even on protected estates how are you going to watch wolves 24/7 and act before anyone shoots one? In the 1990s a farmer shot a ring tailed lemur (a pet that had escaped) because "It looked odd" and while there are sensible full time shepherds who know about the losses a flock should expect there are the "Throw 'em in the field and look in once a week" farmers who will shoot anything as a 'threat' or call someone else in to do the dirty work.
There are so many negatives that it makes no sense to reintroduce wolves. First big argument: hunts killed off foxes, wolves, deer, hares, squirrels, wild cats and many more species by the 1860s. The response was to "reintroduce" more to hunt and kill -it's why certain UK mammal species have DNA matches with European ones -because they were imported from Europe. The Scottish wild cat of today is a feral tabby and even those believing it is a genuine and protected species will tell you that they are shot ("I thought it was a hybrid" -which wildlife 'experts' are happy to see killed to keep the species pure) so you bring European wild cats and release them in Scotland they are not Scottish wild cats they are European wild cats and the UK government legislation on introduced "invasive species" (even if they do good) is "Kill them".
Here we are saying (and we have really 😣 up other countries by introducing non native species so saying "You cannot kill the ones we legally introduced even if they are non native but kill everything else" and then we have the UK Government "get out of everything" clause of "It can be killed humanely if it is a threat to livestock". Farmers can now kill introduced beavers. There is a question about killing otters. Where is the fox (recognised through research as well as by the so called great hunters of the 19th century and before) proven to not predate sheep a threat to livestock in urban areas where there is no livestock?
An introduced wolf pack to pretend we are trying to re-establish the balance that we destroyed in the first place is pointless. They are not British wolves. Extinction is forever.
Second point: where? Wolves need a good territory with mixed habitat such as forests, hills and mountains as well as good water supply and enough natural prey for them to stay alive. I can think of areas and as noted rabbits and deer are counted in the millions and, of course, the wolves would need to be away from farms and livestock to prevent any "human conflict". You would require a huge range and the range would need to be monitored and even wolf proof fencing put up. The logistics are ...almost unthinkable. Even if a landowner says wolves can be released in his/her area how long would that permission last if a sheep or horse were killed during a rough winter?
I would love to see wolves back in the UK but with country hikers and dog walkers seemingly unable to understand how to behave amongst cow herds and sheep flocks and dogs running off chasing deer and rabbits and not returning to their owners' commands how long before one runs at a wolf in mating season or chases at a wolf not realising others are nearby? Then there will come the calls to "control" or "manage numbers" or as we call it "Kill the wolves".
People who get free lunches and good pay to pontificate on these things will carry on and on and they will meet the anti-wolf factions and argument and counter argument -it's all just one big waste of time. Unless you have an area that can be fenced off and protected wolves are only going to meet one fate if reintroduced to the UK or Ireland -a bullet.
We have to learn our lesson and understand that humans killed off so many species in the UK then replaced them to kill again and we lost the Old native species. Let's try to educate and protect and conserve what we have because even now protected species from mammals to birds are being killed off.
Remember: Extinction is forever
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