By the time I had drawn up my Wild Cats, ferals and Hybrids paper in 1999 (pub. 2000) I had gathered a lot of data but there were projects that I wanted to undertake but were beyond my -I'll laughingly call it- "my short pockets"
First was to get trail camsa in certain areas where cats frequented. Today this is not beyond my means but 2020/2021 got in the way. This was to photograph/video the various cats and clearly identify certain large black cats (NOT P. pardis or P. concolor).
Hair and sample gathering work. In several video clips the cat involved is defecating. I also had reports from people who observed larger cats doing this. NO ONE wanted to collect the samples or freeze them until they could be analysed and might tell us more about the various cats habitat, food and health.
I am far from happy with any idea of trapping a cat to get blood samples since it means a trap woul;d, under law, need to be monitored so as not to trap and stress an animal out. I asked the Cat Protection League, which used to run blood tests on ferals, if this might be possible. I was told it was not since they had no real funding and any money went into the cats and treatments.
The same applied for foxes with the idea of trying to find out how many were descendents of imported foxes from around Europe and the USA.
Again, I did not like the trapping idea but financially it would be too expensive anyway.
The idea was to build up a good data base on the felids and canids and that could lead on to other avenues of study.
DEFRA had absolutely no interest in this and I understand it was they who blocked my appeal for EU funding (even though the EU were really not interested as I was not a zoologist and not attached to a university).
I tried -I really TRIED- to convince a university or two that this was a worthwhile project but natural history was not "sexy" enough to bring in money. One response from a university was (I paraphrase slightly): " I can look out of my window any day of the week and see a cat and as for foxes I can turn the TV on to see something about them"
You might think that some universities or colleges had kept Natural History/Biology departments but, no.
Bristol and its Mammal Study Group were not interested in any information or anything really. It, uh, "purloined" data but people once said it was not serious but got a lot of attention from the BBC wildlife unit (just along the road from it) and that meant good publicity and money coming in (to other branches).
Today it seems that environmental issues are what the Bristol Uni team deal with.
Brian Seymour Vesey-Fitzgerald in his 1969 book, Britains Vanishing Wildlife, noted the environmental changes going on yet almost 50 years on it is now recogniosed as an "important issue" and a lot of fox data comes from his observations and at a time he made a living from writing about these issues as there was more genuine interest (and people reading books).
I just threw that in there for no reason.
I'm afraid that I am an old dinosaur but that's me. I'mguessing that if we ever get out of lockdown the trail cams are about the only part of the projects that will be possible.
Thought I'd just let people know.
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