I just received a phone call from a Professor at an English university. Not that unusual as I used to receive such calls all of the time between 1977-2014. Ah, but the topic.
Apparently, it seems that far more academics "are looking at the question of big cats in the UK more seriously" -my first interruption and pointing out that there was only one reported member of the "Big Cat" family in the UK; the leopard. Any way, chummy continued to tell me how he had beemn in touch with researchers in Australia and far more with people in the United States asking about UK "non native cat" reports. At every point he was told that only one name sprang to mind who "knows his stuff and is not a hoaxer" and that turned out to be....oh. Me.
He had apparently read papers I had contributed to for the Eastern Cougar Conference and had tried to contact me "via your collaborator Professor Street-Perrott at Swansea -but they claimed not to have heard of you." I gave a big sigh there and told him that if he had read the ECC paper and seen the other data he knew I had worked with Swansea.
I get very bored with phone calls as I do not like chatting at the best of times so I just asked whether he could tell me what he wanted? He seemed taken aback but got to the point.
Two student assistants under his supervision wanted to take a thorough look at the "big cat" issue for dissertations, etc. and all the academic blather followed -full credit etc etc etc. "All" they needed from me was data for England. I asked him whether he was aware that I officially began looking at non-native cats in 1977? I pointed out that he clearly had no idea how many reports let alone how much work that had involved. My maps?? I asked how funding was gained for the project but it seemed to boil down to student dissertations. In fact this is how academics earn their money and grants; students do all the work and the paper is published under the academics name.
Here is the thing; In the last 20 years alone I have given information and more to students at various universities in my capacity as an historian in British comic books and artists. All promised the same credit etc. and when dissertation no. 15 was published I received no credit -as with 1-14. The official stance was that I gave my time and data for free and although I ought to expect credit there was nothing that said I had to receive credit (oh dear, rules of academia thrown out again).
Would I give my valuable time and help out?
My response was simple: "I have found academic rules only exist for academics and I have lost valuable time, money and sources helping out with these things. No bloody way. Ever." That ended the call.
With Swansea, the student involved in the work simply quit the university and so my rare books vanished with him. "Pity. Nothing to do with us" I was told. To replace those books now would cost around £500 but luckily, though I HATE digital, I managed to get some as pdf.
Rather like with my 1973 and ongoing fox study, not one single university or college was interested and most got rid of their biology sections back in the 1970s. Now everyone is suddenly into studying foxes.
I got far more cooperation from naturalists outside the UK with my wild cat research than from the UK.
Breakthroughs with the Fox as well as the Felid studies were all my own because I had to trudge around, dig into archives and do 40 years of research. Now, some university or college wants to pay me to work with them or run studies on these subjects -here I am.
But never ever ask me to do work for free that YOU get credit for.
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