Unusual fox killed in Loch Aline
A LARGE hill fox was killed recently in the ash woods on the south side of Loch Aline, Morvern, was found to unusual black and red forelegs, giving rise to speculation it might have been descended from the progeny of two old strains.
Once upon a time there were two types of foxes in the Highlands. The ‘Dhubhchasach’ (black-legged) and the ‘Madadh Ruadh’ (red dog).
The Dhubhchasach is undoubtedly today’s common fox, while the Madadh Ruadh was the older. It had red hair down to its paws and was much larger in body and in leg. Its ears were smaller and more rounded at the tips. They were also covered at the back with a mixture of red and greyish hair almost to the tips which were of a black border.
Roy Newton, Lochaber’s huntsman who drew my attention to this animal, tells me its markings are uncommon among the majority of foxes he has dealt with in West Lochaber over the past 30- odd years.
Foxes have been found all over the Highlands and many islands for generations and persecuted ever since man began to keep domestic animals. They are of an ancient and beautiful race and present a striking and colourful sight in the wild, especially when they are unaware they are being watched.
The earliest references to them are to be found in the minutes of the local authority when, in 1759, a committee instructed the principal landowners to come up with a plan to destroy both they and golden eagles because of the number of sheep they were taking.
Little seems to have happened as nine years later they were ordered to appoint fox-hunters in every district.
Foxes appear in a list of ‘ beasts of prey’ compiled in Morvern in 1794 and again in 1843 when the parish minister recorded that about 30 were killed annually, but went on to say: ‘The fox, however, is not worse than he is called and is no doubt guiltless of many crimes laid to his charge: for just as in the household, every missing tea- cup is charged against that mysterious personage ‘Nobody’, every missing lamb is charged against the fox, while there is no mention of the carelessness of the shepherd.’
Most parishes in Argyll had their own professional foxhunters. Among the most notable and indeed one of the last in the county, was Alan MacIntyre from Kintyre who was born in 1745 and died 95 years later.
Educated by a Campbell tutor on the maternal side, Alan was not only a bard but a fine hand-writer – rare for a man of the moors in these days. He was also related to Duncan Ban MacIntyre, the greatest of all Gaelic poets who could neither read nor write.
When Duncan Ban produced a poem for the first time, Alan would set it out for him. Alan MacIntyre’s long hunts after foxes were well known. His most celebrated extended from the head of Glen Barr to Skipness, a distance of 24 miles.
A number of years ago, the late Peter Fraser, Barr, was out stalking with Tim Abel Smith, owner of Laudale Estate, Woodhall Park, Hertfordshire and the Mound near Golspie. During lunch, Abel Smith asked him if there were many foxes about that year. Peter, a man with a reputation for coming straight to the point without the usual West Highland deference towards the big house, and thinking perhaps that his integrity was at stake, quickly retorted: ‘There were foxes in Laudale long before you ever came near the place and there will be foxes here long after you’ve gone!’
THE PUBLIC announcement just before last year’s Hogmanay celebrations that Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has cut its staff by 15 per cent in the last five years axing dozens of jobs across the Highlands and Islands, with a hint of more to come, surprised no- one.
Indeed the question was posed not long ago that if SNH disappeared overnight would it make any difference in the great scheme of things?
A touch harsh perhaps but that it was asked at all speaks volumes.
Although SNH has a workforce of almost 1,000, it is often criticised for its airy-fairy views and reluctance to employ local country folk who, unlike some of its undergraduates, are more in tune with the huge land mass it covers.
Add to this a vigorous and extreme anti- deer policy favouring peripatetic contractors, it is little wonder it has not always been as popular as the Nature Conservancy Council, its highly acclaimed predecessor.
Science is a systematic enterprise that creates, builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe, and we ignore it at our peril.
But where land management and rural affairs are concerned, scientists must be kept firmly in the back ground to advise when called on, not to lead and control.
If SNH does not survive the inevitable financial putsch at least, in years to come, its archives will show the world the variety and quantity of wildlife there once was in the Highlands and islands.