A Pre-Christmas Update

 As I trudge through more fox post mortem reports I am aware that some find that of no interest but at a time when we are seeing fox numbers in the UK drastically decline and a high number of vixen and cub deaths each year it is important to find out what is going on .  As far as I am aware, Bristol  (the UK one) is the only City in which there is both a Badger and Fox Death register so that we can assess the numbers killed (and reported) each year. I believe that if such Registers existed in other towns and cities alarm bells would be ringing very loud.

The final report on the post mortems should appear early in 2025.

I also realise that there are some people who visit this site who have a long standing interest in foxes as well as people at various institutions (particularly museums). We have had success in finding one European museum with a fox from England and dated 1848.  That was pure chance since the search was to try to find Western European counterparts to the Old British fox types.

If anyone -whether in the UK or at a museum somewhere in Europe- has any pre-1860 taxidermy examples of foxes labelled as "Cur" or "Common", "Hill", "Mountain" or "Greyhound"then please get in touch as photographs,dates and location information would be invaluable. 

Of course, the same applies to taxidermy of pre-1860s wild cats from the UK or Europe as we are pursuing various avenues of research based on historical records.

Sadly, we have been unable to find any laboratory/university willing to analyse hair samples from Old fox and wild cats we have in our collection.  DNA was something we had hoped would appeal to academia since the discovery of a new type of fox or wild cat DNA would be quite prestigious.

That is how things stand at the moment. Please remember the two research books on foxes and wild cats are still available and should provide avenues of research for those interested.