Back-dating the Somerset Cat.

On Monday, I went on a field trip. Field trips in Geology are a common occurrence; what better way to learn about rocks than to get out there and look? We were off to a place called Vallis Vale in East Somerset, the site of an unconformity. An unconformity occurs when sediments are laid down, folded so the beds lie at an angle, and then eroded.

Younger sediments form on top of the old sediment in typical straight beds, and an unconformity is created. They are only visible when falling sea levels and colliding continents cause the unconformity to rise above “normal” ground level.

Cutting by a river or quarrying also helps. You can see in the photo the different dips of the beds. The beds themselves can be dated by looking at the fossils within them; the rock below is from the Carboniferous period, and the rock above is from the Jurassic. This site is geologically important as it was described in the world's first Geological Survey memoir in 1846 and helped establish the science. Anyway...

In the minibus on the way up, through the sounds of Rush’s “2112”, I overheard my teacher talking to the lad sat in the front seat that he had seen a “black panther” crossing this road at night. I realised where we were, and found that we were about 800m from the field in which the big cat has been killing dozens of sheep! Hooray!

The next day I stayed behind to ask him about it. He said he had been driving along the road at about 2145 to take his son’s babysitter home, when out of a wood on the left this Labrador walked out onto the road. He stopped to see if it was ok (clearly a dog walking around on its own is a cause for concern), but it suddenly dawned on him that it was a big cat. He stopped the car and watched the cat watch him. It carried on it’s way to the right, and he can remember clearly pressing the button to wind the window up; just in case.

He also said that his first encounter of big cats (or rather, something) happened at around the same time when climbing in Cheddar Gorge. He was getting up to the top of the ridge in an area where no people go because it is very heavily wooded. He got to the top of the ridge, and found an area of scraped ground with a large mound of foul smelling dung deposited inside. He didn’t recognise it as being something he was familiar, but he left it due to the difficulties in getting it back down again.

My teacher is not unknowledgable when it comes to animals; parts of teaching geology necessitate a good knowledge of the natural world, and I would take his account as highly credible. The diagnostic features he remembers are; very long thin tail, jet black colour (“such that if it was hidden in bracken or a ditch, you could come within 3ft of it and not notice it was there” he said), slightly pointed ears and a very calm demeanour. It’s total length was about 2m long.

This is all very interesting, but there was one more thing. The sighting happened 14 years ago.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Back in early February, as I am sure you remember, the British Isles had a flurry of snow. Here in Somerset, we had our fair share, and I - being the good field-man I am - went up to the usual place to see if Mr. Kitty had left any traces of his existence. The farmer had moved his sheep away into shelter over the cold snap, so I knew that there would be no new kills to poke.

I battled my way up to the field, parked up, got out and had a look around. I was extremely surprised to see the amount of snow prints I did (nothing feline though), and got round to the fun business of identifying them all, as all good naturalists should. Now, I know what most of these are, but the real question is, do you, the CFZ blog readers, have any idea what these prints are from? The person who sends in the most accurate answers as to what the following 8 photos show wins a year’s subscription to either The Amateur Naturalist or Animals & Men magazine, it’s your choice! Answers can be sent to max@cfz.org.uk. The number at the end of the text next to the photo shows the question number.

First up, we have this image. Any ideas? They are right down to the ground (3”), so we must be dealing with something with fairly small feet for its body size.

The two prints are about 6” apart, and each print is 1.5” wide. Claws are clearly visible, which are short but thick. The central pad is also diagnostic. [1]

Ok, now try this. We have two prints, which plunge very deep into the snow with a pretty large amount of kicked back snow. The prints are about 1-1.5” in diameter, and are about 1’ apart. [2]


Moving briefly to a photo I took near my house, what have we here? We have thinner snow, maybe an inch, with two sets of prints. One very large long one and two smaller distinct prints. The prints are about 2” wide. Any ideas? long one and two smaller distinct prints. The prints are about 2” wide. Any ideas?







Moving briefly to a photo I took near my house, what have we here? We have thinner snow, maybe an inch, with two sets of prints. One very
































[3]

































And this one? An odd one this. The snow is very thin here. [4]































And this? Four points originating from a central source. [5]


































Right, let’s get tough. The next few photos are fairly indistinct, and I won’t be adding my suggestions and hints for any of these. Good luck!































[6]

[7]

[8]

Oh, and just for fun, this is the amount of prints that you get around a decaying carcass as scavengers, errr, scavenge for meat left on the bones.

The CFZ solves another mystery!

And then, as if by magic, just when I had finished writing the previous blog, I got an email from a contact from the local news who said “One of our readers e-mailed me these this am. I’ve had a long chat with her and she is convinced they are a big cat’s prints. She heard a big “kerthump” as if it was jumping down. She has fields and woods around her and just three houses up there. Lots of deer in the fields. She is on the Cranmore side of Doulting. I said I would pass the photos on to you to see what you think. Her details are below and she is happy to talk to you. I have sent her copies of the stories we did as she had not seen them.”.


Attached were two photos, one showing the print, and the other showing the stride length. They looked pretty damn canine to me, but for a second opinion (always important) I passed them (again) on to Richard Freeman, who had this to say:

"These are clearly dog tracks. The concave shape of the main pad can be seen in the first photograph. Also, the toes are symmetrical and show the blunt claws of a canid. A cat's claws are finer and only seen in prints when unsheathed for a firmer grip on slippery or uneven surfaces. A cat's main pad has three bulges or lobes akin to the shape of a club in a deck of cards. The toes on a cat are asymmetrical unlike a dogs."



I don’t think I can add anything to that! Never mind, at least the CFZ now has a very good photo of what a dog’s print in the snow looks like!

I did have chat with the person who took the photos, and the fact that she lives next to a field in which a few dogs are walked closes this case. Apart from one thing: “She heard a big “kerthump” as if it was jumping down.”. This does sound a bit odd, until you realise that the prints were in her garden, and to escape the dog would have had to jump over the fence, creating the “kerthump” noise. Case closed.

But, the journalist who sent me this case also mentioned that she is “trying to check out the report from the lady from Cranmore who was saying she heard something big snarling in the bushes near her home last month.”. Now, as you can see, Cranmore is very close to the place where the lady found the dog prints. Naturally, I will keep you updated.

Cat prints? Not again...

It is now time to update on the hunt for alien big cats in the UK. Last time, you will remember I was told by a member on an invertebrate’s forum that her boyfriend had taken a cast of the print of an ABC, or so her other half’s mate said, in their local area. Naturally, I asked; “where is it now?” and the reply was “I don't think he has the cast anymore”. “Bugger!” thought I. Never mind, she sent me a link to a photobucket account where there were photos to look at instead. They looked like a good match for a cat to me and the size was well within big cat range. After forwarding them to Richard Freeman, I emailed Hollie, as her name turned out to be, who gave us permission to use the photos, and it is to her that I am very grateful for otherwise this extra evidence would not have come to light. The best photos are shown below.

Also, she said that her boyfriend (Dan) had “actually seen the cat one night when hunting up there, though it was it dark he says he remembers seeing a big pair of eyes, too big for any "normal" animal, and looked orange coloured apparently.”.

Now, it is time to explain this eye shine business. Eye shine is, obviously, caused by light entering an animal’s eye, reflecting out of the animal’s eye and then entering our own. The shine effect is from a layer of tissue called the Tapetum lucidum which is found in many vertebrate animals. Its function is to reflect light into the light sensing cells (Rod cells) in the eye to enhance night vision further. So, when a light is shone into an animal’s eye, you quite often see it shone back at you from their eyes as the light escapes from the lens and through the pupil. Carnivores possess a choroidal tapetum cellulosum which is made of reflective crystals, whereas artiodactyls and perissodactyls have a choroidal tapetum fibrosum made of extracellular fibers. So, these two different reflective layers give different eye shines.

Eye shine varies between different animals, but it is not an exact science. Cats usually have green eye shine (domestic), as do deer, but dogs can vary from green to yellow and to orange, depending on breed. However, a number of reports say that big cats like leopards have orange eye shine, which completely confuses the matter! I must say this subject has been hard to research; everything contradicts everything else!

Then, as if this wasn’t good enough, Hollie spoke to her boyfriend, who said that his mate still had the cast, and that we were welcome to have it for a bit! This is excellent news, so we will have to sit tight and wait for Pat.

In the mean time, Richard got back to me to say this:

“Though I will reserve final judgement until I have actually seen the cast my initial feelings are that these are indeed cat prints. The toes are asymmetrical and lacking in visible claws. The central pad lacks the concave shape of a dog’s .The toes also appear to show greater flexibility than a dog's.”

He attached the following photos; the uppermost photo is of a leopard, whilst the other is of a puma’s print.

Now compare these photos to the cast photos above. Richard says:

“It could belong to a puma or leopard but I think it is most like a puma's with the wide toe pads. In fact the print reminds me of a Florida puma print I saw that had been cast from a track left in sand.”

I agree with him, but also the central pad in a puma is more compact than a leopard’s, very similar to the print in the photo.

For a further analysis, we will have to wait for the print to be delivered. Watch this space with bated breath! But may I just say again how grateful I am to Hollie for letting me look at the photos and for doing her best to help find the cast. If only everyone came forward with evidence!

UK ALIEN ANIMALS STUDY GROUP: Never outfox a fox

There seems to be a theme running threough the CFZ. After Beth's post about her pet fox Millie, we had Tim’s post on urban foxes, Dr. Holdsworth’s post on their biology, and now we have me looking at a very interesting alien animal indeed, the wily fox.

Vulpes vulpes is the UK’s local fox. The genus contains 12 species who are to be found on almost all continents (Antarctica is, as usual, an exception) and they all fill the same role: small adaptable carnivores who are adapted to eating any animal from the size of a typical insect, right up to a large game bird or lagomorph. Foxes moved up from the land bridge from Europe into the UK, but they never got up to the small islands off the coast of Scotland. However, it seems they may well have found a way.

Thanks to the very helpful Glen Vaudrey, (soon to be CFZ Cheshire rep) we have the news that it looks like the red fox has found its way to the Outer Hebrides. Although no reports have been certified by Scottish National Heritage, between December 05 and January 07, with 2 reports before this, 12 reports of foxes have been reported. These come from the Islands Lewis, Harris, Benbecula, and South Uist. I did try to upload an image of the area, but it was too small to see the Island's names, so I have not. But, the reports nearly span the entire area of the Outer Hebrides, from Lewis in the north to South Uist near the South. The sheer span of reports is what settles this matter for me; we have sightings of adults, sightings of cubs, 2 reports of droppings, a dog who acted strangely in response to smells, and finally, that a fox was seen for 15 minutes by a professional mammal biologist. The reports I was sent are repeated below:

Dec-05 Tolsta, Lewis = Report of fox seen on croft
Dec-05 Gress, Lewis = Report of glimpse of fox by road side
18-Feb-06 Urgha, Harris = Report of fox watched for 15 mins by professional mammal biologist
2005 Barvas road, Lewis = Note on local paper about someone seeing a fox cross Barvas road
2005 Clisham, Harris = Letter in Stornoway Gazette reporting seeing fox cubs beside a loch
28-May-06 Tong, Lewis = Report of fox seen in garden
May-06 Galson, Lewis = Report of fox droppings, and a dog behaving in a strange manner in response to smells
06-Jun-06 Daliburgh, S Uist = Report of fox seen crossing road in the evening
06-Jun-06 Liniclate, Benbecula = Report of fox
27-Jun-06 Tolsta, Lewis = Report of fox droppings by Garry Bridge
Aug-06 Uig, Lewis = Seen on road somewhere between Gisla and Grimersta
31-Aug-06 Arnol, Lewis = Seen near fish farm
Dec-06 Gress, Lewis = Seen on a croft
Jan-07 Aline, Lewis = Fox seen in trees by the road

This is a lot of reports, most of which seem viable. As one would expect from foxes, there are reports from a number of different areas, notably including a garden (typical!). 10 of the reports predictably come from the largest Island, Lewis. Now for the real question, how did they get there?

Tough to answer that is. If this was a geological report from 3 million years in the future, and we were looking at fossils not live animals, we could confidentially say that they got to the islands by using the sea as a vector and were washed out to sea, possibly via a flood, where their swimming and the action of the current swept them over to the islands.

The distance from the Inner Hebrides to the Outer Hebrides, is about 25kms, not too far for animals to be swept. This may have taken a few days and a lot of luck, but the fox may well have got there still breathing. Thin, but alive. All it would take is a male and female to be washed up within a few years (their lifespan is only about 3 years in the wild) and you probably have a breeding population. Better than that, a pregnant female is washed over and then you have multiple foxes.

However, we are not dealing with geological time; this is “real” time. I am not so sure that this a long enough period of time for this theory to work, although we must not dismiss it. It seems that humans are a more likely vector, either deliberately or by accident. They could have been released by someone bringing a few over from the mainland, or in the hold of a ship. I am really not sure what to make of it! David MacLennan from Scottish National Heritage says “It’s very difficult to say how they got here, because we don't even know if they are here!” and I must say I agree with him in the main. It seems highly probable that they are there, but more evidence is required. Photos however, are to easily faked by photographing a fox from the mainland, so a pinch of salt may be required if one comes to light.

WIKIPEDIA FACT FILE: Today, the Red Fox has thje widest range of any carnivore - range spanning most of North America and Eurasia, southern Australia, and with several populations in North Africa. In Australia the Red Fox is an introduced species and a serious conservation problem. Introduction occurred about 1850, for recreational fox hunting, In North America the Red Fox is native in boreal regions, introduced in temperate regions. There is a recent fossil record of Red Foxes in boreal North America, and one subspecies of these native boreal foxes extends south in the Rocky Mountains. In temperate North America, Red Foxes are derived from European Red Foxes, which were introduced into the Southeastern United States around 1650-1750 for fox hunting, and from there to California for the fur trade. The first introduction is attributed to Robert Brooke, Sr., who is said to have imported 24 Red Foxes from England. The introduced European Red Fox may have interbred with the scarce indigenous population to produce a hybrid population.

Three subspecies of Red Fox are found in India: Vulpes vulpes montana (the Tibetan Red Fox), found in Ladakh and the Himalayas, Vulpes vulpes griffithi (the Kashmir Fox) found in Jammu and Kashmir less the Ladakh sector, and Vulpes vulpes pusilla (the Desert Fox) found in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan and in Kutch, Gujarat. A subspecies, the Japanese Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes japonica) migrated from India to China and eventually to Japan.

The launch of the UK Alien Animals study group

Hooray! A new venture for both the CFZ and for its shortest member, myself. Alien animals, as we define them, are animals inhabiting a habitat where they are not native. These can be animals which have been introduced into new areas by human intervention, animals moving along pathways which have been created by human activity, or animals which have expanded their range into an unexpected area through natural process.

During this quick introductory post, I will be having a quick look at examples of alien animals in Britain, discussing our plans for the future, and finally, looking at what you, CFZ members and representatives, but first and foremost naturalists, can do to help our studies.

So first, some examples. New area introductions are numerous and well known.

The coypu is a great example. Introduced into fur farms in 1929, this large (4.5-9kg) rodent swiftly made its escape, and soon found that the habitat in East Anglia was very much to its tastes, where it settled and bred very nicely. This news was initially taken as good tidings: Coypu eat a lot of reeds and would clear streams wherever they went, keeping them free flowing. However, it was soon found that they loved vegetables from gardens, and crops from farms, plus their reed clearing activities and burrowing would only cause the river banks to be undermined and collapse. Their only predators big enough to take the babies in Britain were foxes, stoats and herons; they would leave the adults (if only we still had wolves...).

Now, you may be saying to yourself “Well, this is all well and good, but in their native habitat [throughout South America] surely they would cause a huge amount of damage to the area?”. Well, no. Coypu in Britain had hit such densities thanks to so much food from our farms that their numbers could sky rocket. Indeed, some clever ecologist worked out that only when Coypu hit a density of 4 per acre, do they begin to cause large amounts of damage. A huge number of Coypu living in one area of course results in far more burrowing structures than normal, causing bank undermining, and increasing the risk of flood damage.

So, that is new area introductions dealt with, but what about new pathway introductions? This is a bit of an odd term, and I will try to make it clearer. When animals are removed from a food chain, a gap appears which may be suitable for another animal to exploit. For example, by removing top predators like wolves and bears from Britain, we have produced a gap which will be filled by evolution (maybe not now, but certainly in the future, evolution can take a long time to work!). So, by removing these predators, there is a top spot available which is just beginning to be filled by (for the purposes of this article) two types of animal. 1. Big cats, 2. Eagle owls (amongst others)

Big cats, you are quite right, are new area introductions, but they have adapted to new pathways which we have left open. Eagle owls however, may or may not have been present in Britain in recent times before extermination, but they are back! Some birds are undoubtedly captive releases, but some of them I am sure are birds who have flown over from the continent, found a huge amount of prey (from voles to rabbits and even up to buzzards (who incidentally have moving up into that top carnivore slot)) available, so they decided to stay here.

There is currently a male Eagle owl who lives outside the Biology building at Bristol University, which does push this university a little higher up my favourite list for next year. This young fellow is almost certainly a captive release however, but it is still quite interesting! Eagle owls enjoy a bit of a love hate relationship with people, they are stunning birds which people love to see flying around, but when it turns out that they may eat the occasional game bird, the shooting lobby fires up (pun intended) to claim that they should all be shot.

I have nothing against game shooters; indeed, working on a shooting ground has shown me the great help they can be to keeping some species of British bird breeding on land which would have otherwise been eaten up by housing or farmland. The great expanse in breeding areas for game birds must be a good thing, for, as Pink Floyd said, “the price of a few hundred ordinary lives”.

So, that is the basics sorted out. Now for our aims.

We hope to set up a sighting and watch database where we log sightings of alien animals alongside notes about their environment, activity and numbers. We are looking to produce a book by the end of the year: either it will be a monster of a book looking at every alien animal in Britain, from the confirmed to the unconfirmed; or it will be a book split into three parts:

• Mammals
• Birds
• Reptiles, amphibians, and fish
• Invertebrates

but we shall have to see.

The most important factor in making this venture work is you! The people up and down the country who want to help this project go. You can do so my informing either Jon Downes or myself of any sighting you have of an alien animal, together with as much information as you can get about it (not the animal species itself, but what they are doing there, their size, estimated weight, habits, food source etc), or by suggesting ideas and suggestions to helping this get started. We hope to have you on-board soon.