The research took almost 40 years on some aspects (starting in 1977) and
if there is one book I have to hold up and momentarily get an ego over
it is this one. Wolves, foxes -including arctic foxes- Jackals and
coyotes in the UK. Many exotics just released to hunt or simply
dumped/escapees.
The history of foxes in the UK and how they were about to become extinct (there may be no such thing as a true "British fox" now) but were imported in their thousands each year "for sport" -even I sat dumbfounded when I made certain discoveries such as stabling foxes, what "bagging a fox" REALLY meant and more.
One naturalist of 60 years read it and called it "The most explosive book on British wildlife ever" and yet, not a single copy has ever sold.
And my old colleagues at the British Naturalist Association....I like to call them "the opposition" now.
THE RED PAPER
A4 format
Paperback,
202 Pages
Many illustrations and photographs
The history of foxes in the UK and how they were about to become extinct (there may be no such thing as a true "British fox" now) but were imported in their thousands each year "for sport" -even I sat dumbfounded when I made certain discoveries such as stabling foxes, what "bagging a fox" REALLY meant and more.
One naturalist of 60 years read it and called it "The most explosive book on British wildlife ever" and yet, not a single copy has ever sold.
And my old colleagues at the British Naturalist Association....I like to call them "the opposition" now.
THE RED PAPER
A4 format
Paperback,
202 Pages
Many illustrations and photographs
Price:
£20.00
Ships in 3-5 business days.
Up-dated 2011 edition includes
section on sarcoptic mange in foxes and treatment plus a list of
wildlife sanctuaries and rescue centres in the UK.
By the 1700s the British fox was on the verge of extinction and about to
follow the bear and wolf having been hunted for sport for centuries.
The answer was to import thousands of foxes per year for sport. But
foxes kept dying out so jackals were tried. Some were caught, some
escaped. Even wolves and coyote were released for hunting.
The summation of decades of work (1977-2011 and still ongoing) and research reveals the damnable lie of
"pest control" hunting but also reveals the cruelty the animals were
subject to and how private menageries as well as travelling shows helped
provide the British and Irish countryside with some incredible events.
The Girt Dog of Ennerdale is also dealt with in detail
Travelling menageries, there's something I'd always be interested in knowing more about.
ReplyDeleteI saw a black fox a few years ago, amongst the sand dunes on the Southport coast road, that was a weird one. I called the wildlife department, they said they'd look into it but I didn't hear anything else.
When they are born fox cubs are black and there are a few reports of black and even the odd rare white fox (Devon and Suffolk). Basically, in the UK there is no real interest in foxes or fox study and the figure of 75,000 badgers a year being killed by cars is low -most badger groups suggest 100,000 and foxes get hit, left for dead, run over in their thousands. And menageries were a joke -and some (most) extremely cruel.
ReplyDeleteAh, so it could of been a fox cub? Interesting - I've never seen any other foxes in my life time in an up-close sense, only in the distance. And that's an unimaginable number of badgers, never EVER seen one of those.
ReplyDeleteAs for the menageries, I know they were cruel - from what I've read, in those days it was unusual NOT to be cruel to animals. The history of that sort of thing interests me though, like how when one of them was touring a gorilla - the first time gorillas had been seen in this country - they announced it as a caveman or something along those lines. And then there's the descriptions of other exotic animals, and we can only read the old posters and try and guess what animals they actually had.
One I remember reading, turns out it was a buffalo, but they made it sound crazy - face of a monkey, body of a cow, legs of a horse, tail of a snake, proper chimera type stuff.
Ahh, like "The Giant Sewer Rat" said to have been caught in London (or where ever convenient) that was a Coypu or capybara! There was even an infamous American who was used at shows to play a wild man or man ape. In my second book I looked at gorillas in the UK -before they were discovered. OI also relate how they were discovered: basically Berenger was out with his troop of Askari and saw human-like creatures on a hill. Like most Europeans in the military (especially the Germans) he set up the machine gun and just mowed them down. And he was a 'hero' for discovering a new species. Cutting up animals -such as monkey and fish to make up a mermaid!!- to make chimeras was a quaint little money earner!
ReplyDeleteI went to a museum in Hackney a few years ago that had, amongst other interesting things, a couple of those "mermaids", and a Jenny Haniver as well.
DeleteThe feckless slaughter of new species must've seemed like the only option back then - even the majority of the samples Darwin took on the Beagle were ones that he'd killed!