This will make sure that those I promised advanced copies to will get them and that is going to cost me more than I think the books will ever make (the new Introduced Species paper is far cheaper and has to date sold zero copies).
So more updates next month.
"Greater use of sub-headings would be useful. It has quite a bit of a conversational style in places, which isn’t a failing, just perhaps not a fit for us. There are, perhaps inevitably given the sources, a lot of long quotes."
My actual concern was that I had used too many sub-headings! "Conversational style" is something I have come across before. Sir David Attenborough has managed to engage so many people because he has a "conversational" style. The late Sir David Bellamy had a similar style. It is used by some who disapprove of explaining complex issues and matters so that Mr Smith in the street understands. It is something frowned up as academics have their own little club and publications that are treated exclusively as theirs -whether they are funded by public money or not. The "unwashed" must not have access and if a problem needs explaining technical jargon is used because it makes the academic seem to be a genius as it means nothing to the public.
I was once the target of scathing attacks online because I explained a complicated matter in a way people could understand. The purpose of science should be -was supposed to be- the education of humanity and not the hoarding of knowledge for their own little club.
"Conversational style" I take as a compliment. I want to educate and inform not leave people thinking "He is an absolute genius -I never understood a word he said!"
The headings and why I used (obviously not enough) so many is explainable when you look at what is in the book.
A brief synopsis
When the Doggerland bridge flooded the British Isles became separated from
Continental Europe and its wildlife developed uniquely. The British Isles, for the purpose of this work includes Ireland, and isolated the wolves on both became what would be island species not affected by the usual island dwarfism. These wolves, after millennia became “unwanted” and forests and woodland was burnt down or cut down for the specific purpose of lupicide; the killing of every and any wolf –and there was a bounty for “a job well done”. The Ms looks at the history of the wolves, their persecution and what they might have looked at as well as how hunting ravaged the established eco system.
At the same time there also developed three unique island species of Old fox from the coyote-like Mountain or Greyhound fox (historical taxidermy compared to a coyote shows that the British fox was larger), the slightly smaller but robustly built Mastiff or Bulldog fox and the smaller Common or Cur fox –the latter like today’s red foxes had a symbiotic relationship with humans.
These canids were mainly ignored until it was decided that they could provide fur and meat and those things earn money. From that point onward, especially after all other game had been killed off, the fox (previously considered beneath the true huntsman to be bothered with) faced what writers over the centuries referred to as “vulpicide” –extermination through bounties paid, trapping or hunting simply for being a fox and reviled for sheep and poultry stealing that even hunters stated they were not doing in many cases (foxes killing and carrying off a full grown sheep was deemed impossible and a bounty set up in the 1800s to prove foxes did this is still unclaimed).
Hunters knew that they were hunting the “Old types” of fox to extinction and despite all the famous hunter-naturalist writers noting that the Old foxes were nearing extinction the hunts continued until by the late 1880s the Old were gone and replaced by the New –foxes imported by the thousands every year for the ‘sport’ of fox hunting and this importation also led the the UK seeing the appearance of mange (unknown before the importations).
The travelling British sportsmen, going on hunting holidays to the United States, and Europe, went hunting coyote, wolf and jackals, the latter something enjoyed by the Old Colonials. Many on returning to England wanted to bring a taste of of the chase and excitement of a much larger and cunning canid able to afford a longer chase (the most important aspect of the hunt) to “the good old country”. Wolves, jackals and coyotes were set up in hunting territories from where they could learn the lay of the land and provide good sport later. Some hunts even attempted to cross-breed foxes, jackals and Coyotes. And we have the taxidermy proof assessed by independent experts.
A great many taxidermy photographs (none seen in print before) from the 1800s up to the 1930s show what sellers who have no idea describe as “fox masks” (heads). Some of these I have sought expert opinions on and have been clearly identified as coyote and wolf while other are jackals. The importation and press coverage of the period of jackal and wolf hunts explains why so many incidents (again reported in the press) of jackals and wolves as well as coyotes are known for the 19th to 20th centuries -and we have the evidence.
Then there were the legendary –almost mythical– beasts; “The black beast of Edale”, “The killer canids of Cavan” and the “girt (great) dog of Ennerdale”. The press reports from the times as well as what we know today are used to show just what these animals were and in some cases solve the mysteries. The “wild dogs” and the number that lived in the British countryside are an aspect of canid history not looked at before and these wild living animals may have been the animals that were to blame for sheep killings rather than foxes.
In more recent times raccoon dogs and arctic foxes have appeared in the UK; some released for ‘sport’ (as with the arctic fox going back to the 1880s) while others are exotic escapees long since established in the countryside.
By admissions of hunts themselves (past and even present) this was all about fun and sport and nothing to do with “pest control”.
The Ms looks at the social history as well as the way in which humans have affected the eco system starting in the 1700s and the impact is still being felt today and, importantly, how we can and must behave to prevent further extinctions and protect past history for generations to come.
Fully referenced and containing maps and previously unseen photographs whether a layman interested in wildlife, a naturalist or zoologist this book is one you must read. This book re-writes British natural history.
Word count for Red Paper 2022 is 120, 827....that's a lot of typing...and when you consider the edits and re-edits I'd say the Ms has totalled up 130,00 words.
As for the various topics:
The Girt Dog of Ennerdale & Others
The Girt Dog of Ennerdale -Hyena, Jackal or Other?
Successors to the Girt Dog of Ennerdale
Black Beast of Edale
The Scottish Wolfdog or Wolfdogs
Achill Wolves
Foxes
A Very Brief History of fox Hunting
How Many Foxes Are There And Are They A Threat?
More On Fox Mortality
The Great Scarcity and Early human Habituation?
Old British foxes
Anomalies In Foxes
The New Fox Look
Fox Addendum
Arctic Foxes
Raccoon Dogs
Fox and Dog Hybrids
Jackals
The Killer Canids of Cavan
The Vampire Sheep Killer
The Dog-Fox Hybrid
The Sevenoaks Jackal
The Sandbach Jackal(s)
Wolves (a History of British Wolves)
The Dionard Wolf
Wolves of France
Showmen, Menageries & Wolves
The Wolves of Peckham, South Shields and Essex
“Mysterious Depradator” & Others
The Hexham/Allendale Wolf
Wolves in Ireland and Other Escapes
Prairie Wolf/Coyote
Conclusions and Comments
Maps & Notes
Diseases and Illnesses
No one has ever covered the subject of canids in the UK and the island of Ireland in such detail and gathering information from as many sources as possible -historical books and papers by naturalists, zoologists and even hunters going back as far as possible. With the invaluable help of my colleague, LM, it was possible to gather examples of the Old type of canids that the book looks at.
The deforestation is looked at as it was the most important destruction of the environment; forests and woodland destroyed -cut down or burnt simply to get to wolves. Wolves that were not even causing problems (though some had to be left for local lords to have their hunts) and we look at the evidence of what wolves in the British Isles looked like once Ireland became separated from mainland Britain the wolves there became another unique subspecies. I take a look at what remains there are of our old wolves and the various accounts of “the ‘last’ wolf killed”.
When boar and wolves were made extinct so attention turned to the Old foxes three variants (NOT three different species). What we see today are not the native fox of old but new, introduced species that were imported by the thousands each year from at least the 17th century on as the native foxes died out -as noted and recorded in documents of the time. The history of foxes is looked at and how they fit into the eco system and also how they were persecuted even if they were nowhere near human habitation.
Old foxes; greyhound foxes were bigger, fiercer and wilder looking and may have had the same habits as coyotes -having a territory it covered from mountain, hills, forests as well as marshes. Very likely the greyhound/hill foxes the same and were more widespread -though it is noted some hill foxes were sent to other hunts in England as fox number declined again. Whether the descendents of these were the Devon and Cornwall hill foxes we have no idea but as the mountain fox was said to inhabit higher ground and only moving down in bad winters to find food. The Ms, using rare taxidermy, compares the old Greyhound fox with a coyote and the fox is much larger than the coyote.
White foxes and other colour variations existed and this, again, is prove with photographic evidence as is the question of some foxes having ringed tails. The practice of creating artificial dens for foxes on estates is looked at basically to raise foxes for hunts. This practice was also used to raise wolves, jackals and coyotes for hunts matter-of-factly reported in the press and hunting books at the time. The 1840s up to 1930s saw a number of publicised wolf appearances “out of nowhere” and this book solves what was never a “mystery”.
A look is taken at the jackal and coyote and how each had similarities to the Old fox and why they were chosen for hunting. The jackal was probably the most fox-like when it came to living alongside humans. The attempted breeding of fox-jackal hybrids as well as other crosses for hunting is also detailed.
Wild dogs (domestic dogs gone feral) in the UK is also looked at as it was for a very long period a big problem with some even living in packs. The Great Dog of Ennerdale was far from being a mystery beast and it’s activities and eventual death are detailed using archive sources. There were other wild dogs and some matched the Great Dog in local legend.
This is just some - a tiny fragment – of what the Ms contains and adding the unique maps and photographs never seen in print before it was designed to educate professional and amateur on the subject matter and be the definitive book on wild canids in the UK and once and for all push out the inaccurate dogma passed down from one generation to the next to0 a point that modern zoologists have no idea that there were three types of fox in the UK and certainly no museum (definitely not the Natural History Museum in London) has such a large collection of Old type foxes as the one owned by LM.
All of the above applies to the Red Paper 2022: Felids Ms which again destroys dogma and presents unique evidence and reveals for the first time what the original British wild cat looked like and irrefutable evidence that the true Scottish wild cat died out and was declared extinct by Scottish zoologists in 1897.
Quotes are necessary in both works because it is not professional to take a few words or a short paragraph out of original sources that puts it into perspective. I consulted books from the 18th century and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and archives for pre 19th century evidence. The quotations are there because it is not likely that anyone other than a person with a grea\t deal of money will be able to get a hold of those sources and, again, I have spent since 1976 studying wild canids and foxes and dome of the quotes are from unpublished sources.
Long winded but I think it needed explaining. Whether the Canid or Felid Ms both are unique research never before carried out or published and are the basis for future research and study by others.
I have just been told by a publisher that they will not be taking on the Canids book. Here is what happened.
I sent a summary of the book, etc. to several publishers and one responded immediately and said they would like to see both the Canid and Felid Mss. There was no way that I would send two full manuscripts to a publisher in one go even if they are in the "Top 19" wildlife publishers. So I sent a pdf of the Canids book. On Friday (bearing in mind that this has been a bank holiday weekend in the UK) I was told that the person who contacted me had read the book and wanted to forward it to a peer reviewer. As no one else has carried out this unique research over 40+ years I wondered who was going to peer review? But I said okay.
First thing this morning the publisher involved contacted me to state that "There’s a lot of interesting material, but I don’t feel it’s something that would work for us. I’d suggest trying to add more structure to each chapter." Now each section is divided up to deal with a specific aspect of the subject of the MS so how can it be more structured? Also who was the "speed reader" that went through over 360pp and checked the details and sources (as you might expect a peer reviewer to do) and gave a report back in two days?
It could have been a little time wasting exercise by this publisher but I suspect that once it was seen that the work overturned the established dogma on canids and particularly foxes in the UK they baulked. Panicked? Perhaps some of their authors were already selling books that would now look not so well researched.
We also have to remember a lot of people in publishing houses such as directors are associated with hunts or on good terms with them. The UK is not, I feel, a country willing to overturn established dogma and it may be that the book will have to be self published (as the original Red Paper was in 2010) again.
There is 40+ years of research in both the books and I have consulted contemporary documents that others can check and it shows the indisputable facts. I actually do not have an ego to offend here because there is no real place for that in research.
It is disappointing that British publishers have no gumption or spine to actual publish unique research -and it is not only me saying this as it crosses the board- trash and dogma are easy to push and sell.
For this reason if I cannot get a publisher seriously interested then in 2023 I will have to self publish.
Whether this is through fear of upsetting the established wildlife authors who have produced and written dogma for a century or not is unclear. The books are fully referenced and draw on the historical archives of contemporary naturalists who knew the foxes and wild cats first hand rather than some modern author who is totally unaware that the Scottish wild cat was extinct by 1897 (officially) or that there were three types of British fox originally. It is possible that some publishers have people higher up who are "friends of the hunt" so do not want to show the true facts.
The alternative to a British publisher would be one based in Europe or the United States that specialises in ground-breaking work on wildlife.
We'll see.
A VERY brief look at some of what is discussed in both Red Papers
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The one thing I heard again and again from people at museums as well as on wildlife groups was that they had never heard of Britain (I include Ireland here as part of the "British Isles") having three types of fox.
I have to make it clear since this caused much annoyance amongst certain 19th century naturalists, that when I write "types" I am not meaning species. We have yet to have DNA work carried out but are assuming (a dangerous thing) that all three types were of the Vulpes species even if, as with Ireland, they were a unique island species having been separated from Continental Europe for millennia.
It also needs to be pointed out that the wolves of Britain were also, again, unique island species but not subject to the dwarfism found in other island species.
The current "wild tabby" that people call the Scottish wild cat bears no resemblance to the actual original wild cat. That cat was yellowish (with a grey phase) with stripes and naturalist Pennant dubbed it the "British tyger". It fulfilled the role left by the lynx (a cat that may well have survived into the Medieval period in Britain). This wild cat was big -often the size of the dogs used to attack them and that they were ferocious and not above attacking a man and dogs if pushed is documented. This was a unique species to Britain (the Irish wild cat I deal with in some detail in The Red Paper Felids).
The wolf was simply hunted because they were wolves and the true extent of this lupicide is shown in the Red Paper Canids with forestry and woodland not burnt down or cut down for agriculture but to make the wolves more accessible. There are very rare remains of wolves in Britain but they await DNA testing.
When it comes to foxes the idea that killing them was anything but for or for money vanishes when you note writer after writer noting how efficient the system of vulpicide was. Adults or cubs each had a price on their heads that encouraged people to kill when they could. Add to this the fur trappers and the organised hunts and it is no surprise that by the late 1600s at the least foxes were being imported to continue hunting 'fun'.
In the books and articles by the 'great sportsmen' of the 19th century it is noted how the Old fox types were becoming rarer and would soon follow the wolf into extinction. All very sad. So did they try to conserve the Old foxes? No, they continued to hunt them and lament how once gone their fun would be over. There was absolutely no secret in the newspapers, journals and 'sports mens' books they reported how foxes were imported and sent around the country and each "expert" had their own way of conserving these foxes in artificial dens and that meant preventing their game keepers from harming foxes. The foxes were protected and could take as many pheasants as they wanted so that they could be ready for hunting season. A very peculiar type of 'vermin control' (a phrase used only by hunts and supporters and meaning animals that were on the list to hunt). Even today there are artificial fox dens on hunt lands though the pretence of "vermin control" was thrown out a good while ago and they now proudly call it a 'sport'.
There is evidence that there were fox feeders even in the "Golden Age of hunting" (19th century). Pets being killed by fox hounds is nothing new and goes way back in time -as does the killing of small holders fowls. On one occasion the Master of the Hounds Dilworth lost control and a nanny picked a baby out of its cribbed just as the hounds got to it. The repercussions and outrage from the hunting community was loud. That a baby could have been torn to shreds? No, that it may have affected the 'sport'!
Melecide was also a thing for centuries and how badgers actually survived into the 21st century (where they are still being persecuted) has me stumped. Even the famous "sportsmen-naturalists" such as John Colquhoun killed badgers but then let them be, pointing out that they were harmless creatures -he did let his sons kill some for the 'sport' before forbidding any more badger hunts. As far as I am aware there were no imports of badgers but from Scotland and into the north of England regions were cleared on=f them by the late 1700s -again, bounties were paid.
Hares were wiped out as were deer in some areas and...more were imported from Europe which is something you do not read in wildlife books or see in the writings of naturalists simply because they do not carry out the historical research but repeat ad nauseum the same old dogma. Ignorance of history and facts create dogma that means the same ignorance is just accepted. Every British wildlife book you see on a book shelf from the 1920s onward is incorrect in many ways. This is, and has been, proven.
I have found one museum in England that has a specimen of an English wild cat. No Welsh museum has a specimen of its former native wild cat either. What they all have are "Scottish wild cats from around 1900" -hundreds of cats killed for museums that had to conform to a "Museum Type" which naturalists who had studied wild cats in situ declared to not actually be true wild cats. It may well be why the Natural History Museum (London) were downright obstructive on both foxes and wild cats yet asked, on three occasions, what the scope of my work was and the contents (I have the emails).
It is important that everyone, especially the youth of today, learn the facts so that we cannot make the same mistakes -which we are by designating foxes as "common" and unprotected while they die at a rate of up to 100, 000 per year due to shooting, poisoning, snaring and mass killing by cars. It is only via rescues and releases that foxes are still around because without the work carried out by rescues, if orphaned cubs and injured cub/adults were left to die we would now be concerned -or should be concerned about numbers. Foxes are great indicators of the local ecosystem and not just that but they take care of rats and mice and the more natural predation the less use of rodenticides which kill hedgehogs (supposedly a protected species), badgers (supposedly a protected species) as well as pets such as dogs and cats and even birds of various species.
One thing that must never be forgotten (fox fur farming in the UK being another) is the fact that everyday ordinary people took part in the killing off of these species -wolves, foxes, wild cats and (almost) badgers. For 'fun', for money and very few stood up to protest (historical social aspects I go into in the two books) bur by the early 20th century more and more did protest and prosecutions for animal cruelty and damages caused were not uncommon. There is absolutely no reason for people to not call for the halting of hunts in all their forms and "tradition" (ie the extermination of species) is no longer valid as an excuse. After all even pheasants for shooting season are imported into the UK now (chalk another extirpation up to 'sportsmen').
Yesterday afternoon I had to stop and take a deep breath. I finished work on The Red Paper 2022 Vol. I: Felids earlier this month (the 7th July to be precise). I had tracked down long lost images and reports and the one thing that really niggled at my brain was the fact that a certain wild cat shot and killed in England in the 1920s (there were six killed and in the same wild area) had vanished from a museum where it existed up until the 1980s.
Finding images and taxidermy going back to the early 19th century (my colleague LM does most of the taxidermy discoveries) but failing to find something that existed in a museum until so recently was...annoying.
I spoke to various old naturalists and though their memories are not as great as they used to be they did recall the wild cat in question and seeing it at the museum in question in the late 1980s. Should I just put it down as a failure or ask the museum to double check and make sure it had not gone to another establishment? I gritted my teeth and asked whether it had been loaned out.
It had. The taxidermy had not even been registered at the museum in the first place which is why there was no record and since the 1990s had resided at another museum on loan...but forgotten).
I know have the photographs thanks to the museum in question and it has been added as an "addenda" at the back of the book. It may not be -there are questions only DNA will be able to answer- pure bred but it seems far more likely that it was part of a remnant population of British wild cats shot into extinction with only one being preserved -the others were simply dumped near to where they had been shot despite the shooters being aware that wild cats were supposedly extinct. The 'fun' of the shooting was what mattered.
As with the many other photographs that have not been seen publicly before (as with those in the Canids volume) there will be no "reveal" -which would make the whole purpose of the works redundant.
British Felid and Canid history has been re-written and that is far from bragging. Just fact.
Born in
Between 1977-to date, Terry has acted as a wildlife consultant to
Circa 1976,Terry joined the oldest UK UFO group, the British Flying Saucer Bureau [f.1952] and became an investigator, later Head of Research & Investigation and also editor of the UFO News Bulletin.
In 1977, as an attempt to promote more scientific approach to UFO investigation, Terry set up UFO International (see entry in Sachs, M., Encyclopaedia of UFOs, 1980).
Having established contact with Lord Clancarty and Air Vice Marshal Sir Victor Goddard (a former head of RAF Intelligence and outspoken UFO believer), in 1977 Terry, along with late colleague Franklyn A. Davin-Wilson, visited London for a meeting with Clancarty, Goddard and others having submitted a document calling for a National Aerospace Commission (NaComm). Hooper was asked to mount an unofficial investigation into all aspects of the UFO phenomenon –a limited fund for travelling and living expenses was agreed upon.
In January,1978,the Anomalous Observational Phenomena Bureau (AOP B) began its work building up a data base on every aspect of UFOs –historical cases, trace, physiological and psychological, animal disturbance, EM cases and much more.
Original members of the AOP B were:~
Graham F.N.Knewstub [deceased]
Dave Cowdy [deceased]
Franklyn A.Davin-Wilson [deceased]
Terry Hooper
Between 1978-1984 there was much unofficial assistance given to the Bureau by professional astronomers [some publicly sceptical],former members of the Armed Forces, Air Ministry, Ministry of Defence as well as serving members of the Armed Forces and Police Forces. A network of UFO investigation & research groups was set up including GUFOI&RG (Gloucestershire), Wessex UFO I&R Group (
Much of this cooperation continued well past the closing of the Bureau in 1995,though Governmental changes in policy since then have restricted any cooperation.
In 1984 a 2000 pages British Report On Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) was completed (publicly unpublished). This was later reduced to 1500pp on editing. Lord Clancarty, Sir Victor Goddard and others, including members of the House Of Lords UFO Study Group, stated that the Report was “…the closest thing the UK will ever have to a Project Blue Book”.
Although copies went to the Ministry of Defence and Sir Victor kindly passed copies on to former subordinates and ex-heads of RAF Intelligence, private UFO groups and Ufologists condemned the Report without even having seen the Summary offered. The Report is currently being up-dated with more contemporary evidence being added.
Terry edited the in-house AOP Bulletin which it is hoped will re-appear in late 2006.
Apart from this work Terry has specialized, since 1974, on Close Encounters of the Third Kind/Entity cases and provided the data for BUFORA to contribute to Ted Bloecher’s HUM-CAT. He has also written many articles on Ball Lightning, meteorites, astronomy, CE-3Ks and Alien Entity cases as well as reporting on UFO incidents
(of which he has investigated approx. 2000 since 1974).
Terry re-opened the AOP Bureau on 1st January, 2006 to continue the original work, aligned to no other groups or investigators.
Current study includes cases involving non-humanoid alien-entities associated with UFOs, video footage evidence and continued study of “spooklight” phenomena.
Back in the 1970s was also a consultant for the Kentucky UFO Investigators League, a member of the Society for the Investigation of The Unexplained (SITU), of which he operated a
Terry also maintained links with Bigfoot/Sasquatch researchers such as The Bay Area Group (BAG), Bigfoot Investigation Team, Dmitri Bayanov, etc.. Terry maintains files on lake and sea creatures, ghosts and most other unexplained or explained phenomena he has looked into –these include ghosts and hauntings.
Motto: per cognitionem veritatis (Through Knowledge the Truth)
At the moment The Red Papers (vols. I and II) I have set a publication date of 1st March for. This will make sure that those I promised a...
