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Sunday 11 January 2015

The Red Paper


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:CANINES vol.1
THE RED PAPER
A4 format
 Paperback,
202 Pages
Many illustrations and photographs
Price: £20.00
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

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