Fox Health, Fox History and Fox Education -More Important Now Than Ever

 I know that some people may think this blog concentrates too much on wildlife welfare and health. That may well be the case but where else are you going to learn about these things and have them explained in a non-technical way?  

Use of lots of technical terms tends to leave the average person with a blank expression and while that might all read very nicely for veterinary or wildlife professionals it is not some sort of secret cult with sacred texts that the "unwashed" must never see -sometimes it feels like that. I went on a sharp learning curve with having to read through over 60 fox post mortem reports and I have also read every paper I can find on fox health and those are mainly available from Europe as in the UK if you are not with a university or college then you can go whistle into the wind. Institutions that receive public funding should not be refusing access to the public to completed papers but they do.

Which means, of course -grab what you can, learn from it and spread the knowledge. I hope at least some of the posts have been interesting or taught readers something. No feedback tends to mean I just have to take it for granted that the international audience this blog has means people are interested!

In amongst all the work on wildlife health there is still ongoing research and we are still learning about the Old fox as well as the Old wild cat (just to make those certain people who grind their teeth when I write that grind even more) which has absolutely nothing to do with what is being promoted today as a 'true' wild cat, the wild tabby. 

One thing I have encountered when researching the extinct foxes and wild cats is aggressive responses as well as "we are not going to cooperate with you" attitude. 

As noted elsewhere on this blog the Natural History Museum (London) was quite willing to cooperate at first but then became downright obstructive. Appointments made to meet up with the Mammal Group there and take measurements of foxes in storage there were made, ignored. Made again and now it's "What was agreed?" and when everything was explained again...complete silence. The so called "Kellas cat" in the Museum's collection -they claim (despite the mention and photos in books, magazines as well as BBC TV footage) not to know about it. I sent a copy of a photo taken in their Museum and asked if they could at least supply me details of this? "We recognise it as having been on display -do you know where it is?" That is not a joke. I was seriously asked and told them that if it was their specimen and it had been on display in their museum then it was rather careless of them to lose it.

I believe that I mentioned on this blog that the last 'serious' communication I had with the Natural History Museum was when I asked a couple of questions to add info to my book (The Red Papers) and the simple questions were not answered but the reply was: "What is the scope of your paper and what does it contain and conclude?" Whoa! Firstly, the Museum has no say in what someone publishes and they most certainly do not demand all the info from decades of research that is in your book/paper. When I said I would let them have a copy of the finished book....silence.

From the 1970s up until the early 2000s I had very good relations with staff at the Museum who were always helpful, polite and even offered suggestions when they could which might further what I was working on.

The fact that the Extinct Fox and Wild Cat Museum has far more taxidermy specimens and information on extirpated foxes and wild cats combined with the 40+ years of in-depth research I carried out may feel like a threat to a museum. After all, since the early 1900s UK museums have promoted the wild tabby and imported red fox as the only wild cat and foxes that ever existed in the UK and proving they were not is a mite embarrassing.   Museums are supposedly the centre of knowledge and education yet we know that even in the mid to late 19th century they were putting on display hybrid or feral cats as 'wild cats' and this was pointed out to museum curators over and over with no effect. When Victoria and Albert visited Scotland everything Scottish became the "in thing". For that reason the tabby looking cat was shot in droves because it became the "Museum Standard". People at museums were not naturalists in the main and they read dogma which they were obliged to pass on to everyone else. Ask a museum and their 'wild cat' was donated or acquired around 1900-1905 at the height of Scottish trendiness.

Imagine now having to explain to the public that the fox and wild cat on display are not the true Old species'?  Imagine the writers who have simply cribbed from others and who have never heard of Mountain or Greyhound foxes because they never carried out any real research (I never believed in the Old foxes back in the 1970s until I did deep research). Publishers pushing books on foxes, etc -not very happy to be told they were publishing dogma rather than true wildlife history. 

I was even told that the Red Papers would never be published by a UK publishing house (apart from owners who were friends of hunts) because it overturned everything we had been taught. I had two publishers very excited about the manuscripts then, quite suddenly, they were not. Why? Oh this and that which made no sense until a "quiet word" that they had published books on red foxes and my Ms "would be sort of embarrassing to us".

Smaller UK museums in the UK and Eire were very helpful if some were dead ends. Some discoveries were made, though!

I have noted how a certain gentleman at a Swiss museum was rather brusque and rude when I asked about Old fox types in his museum collection. "your theory" was how he dismissed me without being told any theory and he also told me he had a large collection of fox specimens behind him in the museum but was not going to get out of his chair to check them -again I am not joking. Then he mentioned that he was an expert of red foxes and had been for 30 years. Dogma and someone demonstrating pomposity and lack of curiosity because to look would involve getting out of his chair. I later found he had told other museums in Switzerland not to bother.

The Natural History Museum (Paris); there are two foxes in the collection of LM that could be historically significant for French wildlife and early exploration so I sent photographs of these to Paris and asked whether they could confirm from the collection of the individual involved, which they hold, that the ink stamps under the taxidermy stands were those he used?  I made it clear and even included a French translation but was asked whether I was asking if these were museum stamps? They clearly were not. So I explained again and was given a link to the museum data base which went on for pages but no photographs of taxidermy or anything else that would help. So I explained again that the data base was of no use but did they have someone who oversaw the mammal collection who could look.  I got the link to the data base. If the two foxes are historically important to France ...well, they are staying in England.

There was one success with a European museum that did have an Old fox type from 1848 that was a gift!  The lovely staff even took the fox out of its case to photograph for us.

One thing I have learnt is that a lot of modern experts in Europe have no idea that there were Western European Old foxes. Dogma is taught and passed along. We know that Swedish and Norwegian foxes were exported to England for hunting and that the Norwegian foxes were as large or larger than the Mountain fox. No one has ever heard of this yet it has been proven by contemporary accounts.

https://foxwildcatwolverineproject.blogspot.com/2023/06/swedish-and-norwegian-foxes-were.html

It is even possible that British fox hunting not only killed of our Old foxes but also the Old Western European foxes.

https://foxwildcatwolverineproject.blogspot.com/2023/10/did-british-fox-hunting-wipe-out.html

It took years but I finally managed to identify the fox type that existed until hunted to extinction in Hong Kong.

https://foxwildcatwolverineproject.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-hong-kong-fox-now-we-can-identify-it.html

All of this is discovered through research and lots of eye strain and financial expenditure and there is no funding -it is all funded out of very shallow and empty pockets! Sales of the books would have helped fund more work but wildlife is only interesting if it's pretty and portraying a false image. Chocolate box paintings beat Van Gogh paintings hands down every time😏

There is a lot going on with research as well as in helping foxes alive today and when you look at how wild canids are senselessly wiped out just for 'fun' we need to learn, to educate and protect and conserve no matter how much the 'sportsmen' moan.