Plummer on the Rise of Mute Dogs

A repost from 2005

Forty Years Onwards, By D. Brian Plummer

I believe I have mentioned this before, but in the mid 1960's, Britain experienced 'Fell Fever' a time when a host of Lake District terrier men came south to judge Terrier Shows, They were treated like gods and many southern terrier buffs who had a reputation for being of sound mind suddenly began speaking in a Cumbrian accent. At that time Jack Russell terriers won most of the shows, though from time to time a rather spectacular Border terrier was selected as BIS (Best in show). Quite suddenly all the major prizes went to fell terriers, quite attractive dogs with excellent coats but sometimes over fourteen inches at the shoulder. In 1964 most winning terriers seemed to be twelve inches at the shoulder, but within ten years the winners seemed to be over fourteen inches at the withers. I'm losing the point of my article, so two points to the starboard to correct my drift. Some of the elderly terrier men who came south as savants to judge the shows had a good knowledge of working terriers others, - 'were not good enough to be allowed to carry my ferret box'. Many owned terriers which were devils to worry sheep and were totally uncontrollable in the field, and hence it became fashionable to allow a totally wild terrier to be hunted and stone daft comments such as, 'If he came out when I called him, I'll shoot him'. The reputation of the terrier man suffered greatly and those who owned working terriers were regarded as buffoons by the rest of the field sport fraternity. In the 1960's most terrier men expected their wards to behave while hunting, some terriers even dropped to shot when worked with the gun. Others retrieved to hand -'mine still do', yet the appeal of the self-entering easy to start fell terrier was such that tractability was sacrificed providing the terrier raced to ground and grabbed the fox. Prior to the 1960's hard terriers, those who would go to ground and grapple without giving tongue were not considered worthwhile. Indeed such dogs were sold for a song or given away. Game, but mute terriers which simply engaged the fox in silence were undesirable. Not only was such a dog virtually useless as a bolter of foxes, but it was difficult in the extreme to dig to such a terrier. In the 18th Century Iron-Hard ultra game terriers were mated to beagles, to give the hybrid 'voice' (Memories of The Old Charlton Hunt) Foxes rarely bolt if they are faced with a very hard dog in a natural earth, though a fox encountered in a smooth sided glazed drain will vacate the den quite quickly if faced with a hard dog. In a natural earth, particularly in a den interlaced with tree roots, matters are very different! A 'gentle' dog, one that bays at its fox rather than tackles it will, by dint of its barking, annoy a fox so much that it seeks to leave an earth for the sound of baying is multiplied ten fold in a deep earth. A harder dog races to ground and seizes its fox, foxes quite often adopt the practice of playing dead when attacked or frightened, though in point of fact the condition is closer to catatonia rather than a cleverly thought out plot. Hence the hard dog seizes its fox, which goes into a death like trance, only to find itself in a life and death encounter, when it recovers from its 'fit'. Such a fox cannot bolt and must fight to the death- though most terriers find it surprisingly difficult to kill a large fox in a subterranean struggle. Hence the terrier man of the 1960's did not require a very hard mute dog. Indeed such a dog was a liability where foxes were required to be bolted, yet changes in the way terriers would work foxes were at hand. In the 1960's moves were afoot to develop detectors, which would locate a terrier below ground. Hither to the barking of the terrier guided the digger to the fox (hence the mute terrier was a liability) now even mute terriers could be used providing the terrier was fitted out with a locator collar or the terrier had not engaged with the fox out of range of the locator. Absurd statements such as 'this terrier had never been known to make a sound below ground and I intended to found my strain on the dog' began to appear in the sporting press. Old timers shook their heads at such nonsense, but youngsters not old enough to know better, delighted in such rubbish and sought to buy dogs with similar attributes. The locator also changed the face of ferreting - once the sport of the patient and the silent now became the sport of those eager to catch a rabbit quickly with little regard to damaging the rabbit burrows. Ferrets were simply fitted with locators, put to ground and on encountering their rabbits were dug to in double quick time. If left to its own devices the rabbit would have bolted and hit the nets - with little or no damage to the burrow. Likewise the use of locators in the hunting of foxes. Many fresh foxes - not foxes chased to ground by hounds - will bolt when a terrier goes to ground and engages them. Most will bolt if the terrier engages them for long enough and noisily enough. Now by dent of using locators an amateur terrier man, and a crass amateur at that, is able to locate a fox with almost pinpoint accuracy and puts spade to sod instantly destroying age old earths which have housed a thousand or so foxes. Dan Russell. A savant of the 'old school' once wrote of the dangers of premature digging and not allowing the terrier to work its fox- and possibly bolt it. Sadly no one heeded his advice. Ronald Jones of West Wales, regarded by some as the greatest expert on the management of gun packs, once stated that he has yet to have encountered a terrier, which was too small for bolting foxes. These days a visit to a hunt terrier show will see huge sixteen-inch dogs winning classes - terriers far too large to work the majority of fox earths. Hideously scarred terriers are prized by terrier owners, most of whom seem unable to get a terrier to return to hand and well-trained terriers are noticeable by their absence. This is a study of the evolution of the terrier and its owner over nearly half a century, I confess that its not a pretty picture that has been painted , but never the less a true one. .

Curiosity Kills the Rat

Rat hunting, 1850.


One of the many diseases harboured by rats is toxoplasmosis.

Toxoplasmosis is a major livestock disease and is a serious problem for humans. In the U.S., it is said that toxoplasmosis causes more congenital abnormalities than rubella, syphilis and herpes combined.

The Toxoplasma gondii parasite (a protozoan) passes from rats to cats to humans. It has long been known that toxoplasmosis changes rat behavior and makes them more susceptible to predation by domestic cats, which are the parasite's definitive host.

Dr. David Macdonald's team from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford looked into how toxoplasmosis effects rat behaviour. They found that compared with healthy rats, infected rats were more active (and hence more prone to cat predation), more curious (even approaching humans), and more likely to overcome their innate fear of cat odour. Some infected rats even preferred areas scented with predator odors!

Obviously, a disease that makes rats lose fear of predators must have some adaptive benefit for the microrganism. And it does. Since infected rats are more likely to be killed by cats, the Toxoplasma cunningly helps move itself on to its final cat host.

Ironically, curiosity kills the rat, not the cat.

In most other respects, rats infected by Toxoplasma behave normally. They are not totally deranged and their social status within their warrens is unchanged. However, infected rats are less phobic of novel foods and are also more easily trapped. So, in addition to tempting fate with respect to predation, these unfortunate rats are also more susceptible to control measures.

Toxoplasmosis is very rarely carried by dogs. It is theoretically possible for a dog to get toxoplasmosis, but this is so rare (only occuring in dogs with seriously compromised immune systems that are already fighting off some other type of disease) that dogs are not considered a vector.
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The Last Rat Pit in New York

I'm off to Brooklyn this morning, so it seems fitting to post a little terrier history from that Great City.

The last rat pit in New York City was owned by Christopher "Kit" Burns, and operated as "Sportsman's Hall" at 273 Water Street. The building still stands.

Burns was supposedly a tavern keeper, but in actuality, he was one of the last of the "Dead Rabbit" gang made famous in the Martin Scorcese movie, "The Gangs of New York." The Sportsman's Club was ostensibly a bar, but it derived a large portion of its revenue from rat killing spectacles, and the occasional dog fight.

As James Dabney McCabe, writes in "Secrets of the Great City" (1868):

"Rats are plentiful along the East River, and Burns has no difficulty in procuring as many as he desires. These and his dogs furnish the entertainment, in which he delights. The principal room of the house is arranged as an amphitheatre. The seats are rough wooden benches, and in the centre is a ring or pit, enclosed by a circular wooden fence, several feet high. A number of rats are turned into this pit, and a dog of the best feral stock is thrown in amongst them. The little creature at once falls to work to kill the rats, bets being made that she will destroy so many rats in a given time. The time is generally 'made' by the little animal. . . . "

Kit Burns had two of his favorite dogs stuffed and hanging over the bar. One was called Jack, and was a black and tan terrier that had killed 100 rats in 6 minutes and 40 seconds, an American record. The other dog was Hunky, a dog fighting dog that expired after his last "victory".

Kit Burns's last rat pit fight occurred on November 21, 1870 according to Robert Sullivan's book, Rats, on an occasion when 300 rats were "given away, free of charge, for gentlemen to try their dogs with." Henry Bergh, who founded the SPCA, raided the establishment that night, and Kit Burns was rounded up. Though everyone involved was acquitted, Kit Burns caught cold and died before trial, and the Sportsman's Club was permanently closed.

Kit Burns's widow told a reporter from The Sun newspaper that Mr. Bergh, the SPCA man, was invited to visit her at her new home in Brooklyn "provided the gentleman will have the kindness to bring his coffin with him."
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A History of NYC Rats (with Two Free Chapters)

I will be in New York City tomorrow and for the next few days.

In honor of that, let me offer up a free read from "Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants" by Robert Sullivan.

This is a book about the rats of New York City, including profiles of rat catchers, rat biology, rat history, and other odd bits. A good read, if not quite a complete history of one the world's most important animals.

The first two chapters of the book can be read & here. This is a 12-page PDF.

Order the book new from amazon.com here, or from www.abebooks.com if you are looking for a used edition.

Queen Victoria's Rat Pits

A recycled post from blog, circa March, 2005.

Between 1800 and 1900, the population of Great Britain grew from 10 million to 35 million and advances in medicine, agriculture, animal husbandry and industry occured by leaps and bounds.

Despite great economic and social advances, the era was a time of squalor, deprivation, and grinding poverty for most people. The Enclosure Movement of the early 19th Century had forced huge numbers of people off of their lands and into the cities where they lived cheek-to-jowl and hand-to-mouth. Horse excrement littered the streets, water was pumped into homes untreated, and sewage systems were quickly pushed beyond capacity. The first large factories were started, and with them crushing boredom, inhumane work loads, and horrific industrial injuries.

Into this world arrived Rattus Norvegicus -- the brown rat. The rat pits required a certain type of rat -- the Brown Rat -- to do business. The Black Rat is simply too small and too docile to provide much sport, plus they tend to reside at rooftop, making them much harder to catch. It is not an accident that the Romans, who would fight any other two animals at the drop of a hat, did not have rats pits -- they were missing the required animal.

The Brown Rat arrived in Great Britain around 1730 and -- over the next 70 years -- quickly proliferated in the trash and garbage-strewn cities of England driving its cousin, the plague-carrying black rat, into extinction.

Bored and impoverished factory workers quickly found a good use for brown rats -- as contest combatants with small dogs. Thus was born the Rat Pit.

Rat pits were not actually pits, but instead were small built-up enclosures six to 12 feet in diameter, with wooden sides at elbow height, and with smooth metal walls to discourage the rats from climbing.

Into this pit were tipped various numbers of rats, depending on the size of the dogs and the rules of the contests. In general, dogs competed against each other by weight, with dogs being timed on how many rats they could kill in a set amount of time or -- conversely -- how much time it took them to kill a set number of rats.

Some contests featured rats placed inside overturned flower pots so that the dog had to knock over the flower pot, release the rat, and then run around inside the ring to catch the rat -- amidst all the other flower pots also containing rats ready to be released if that pot were knocked over in the commotion.

The rat pit era did not last long and, contrary to what is sometime asserted, no breed of dog was specifically bred for this sport. Because the rules varied so much from pit to pit and from contest to contest, it was impossible to breed a dog that could develop much of a competitive edge.

Speed was important, of course, but so too was the weight of the dog and the degree to which it could take punishment. Square pits were very easy for a dog to work as the rats would jungle up in a corner and the dog could pick them off the back -- here only speed mattered. Round pits defeated this tactic, however, and if a dog were required to work 30 to 50 loose rats in a round enclosure, it would likely take some bites around the ears.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal was founded in 1825. They found rat pits an easy thing to oppose as they were organized, drew publicity, and had a less-than-politically-powerful clientel. It did not hurt at all that many rat pits were associated with bars. Never mind that children were being jungled off into work houses, mothers were starving, and factories were lopping off the fingers of their workers -- save the rats!

By 1835, rat pits had been outlawed in Great Britain -- along with the fighting of any other animal whether wild of domestic. The era of legal rat pits had lasted not much longer than 50 years -- and within another 40 years or so, even the illegal rat pits would be gone.
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Smoke Out Those Rats!

The July 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics helpfully explains how to use your new fangled car or tractor to smoke rats out of the barn!

That system still works, of course, though now you can get a propane insect fogger that does the same thing and is much more portable.
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World War I Rat Hunters in the Trenches

World War I Trench Hunters: Photo from a German newsmagazine with a not too-subtle remark on sanitary conditions: "The result of 15 minute's rat-hunting in a British trench."

Note the Jack Russell Terrier in the gentleman's arms at left. Click on picture to enlarge. Photo from Great War in a Different Light.

Another photo from the same site, below, shows French rat hunters in the French trenches. Again, note the terriers.

The illustration, below, comes from the British Magazine, The War Budget. Again, note the Jack Russell Terrier in full pursuit.
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For other stories about terriers in World War I, see:

• Hitler's Stolen Jack Russell Terrier

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Reality Comes to the Rally

The 2005 Monetpelier border terrier rally. This is a repost from 2005.

I have done the Border Terrier Rally at Montpelier every year for the last 21 years (one of only two organized events I attend) and in recent years they have put me to work as a rat rangler since I do not show, and Trooper has been banned from racing (after he did it only once and ripped through the welded mesh at the front of the racing box, grabbed the fox tail, and would not let go).

This time I decided to do a little education of the show ring set and I very quietly brought along a hard 6-inch tube about 5-feet long. I set up the "Rally Ratting" event so that at one of the eight stations the dog would have to go at least 18-inches or more down a heavy-duty 6-inch tube (staked hard to the ground and totally immoveable) in order to get at the rats which were in another 4-inch PVC tube drilled with air holes.

Not a dog could do it!

After a dog proved that it could not do it, and before the owner started to explain or complain too much, I pulled out the pictures (below) of a December fox.

First I showed them this picture. Many "oooohs and ahhhs" about how big the fox looked (actually it's a pretty small vixen)



Then I showed them this picture and noted that the woman spanning the fox has completely overlapped her thumbs. Since I dig with this woman quite a lot (I dug this fox with her) I know she is no giant (maybe 5' 6"). This fox was 40 inches from tip of nose to tip of tail, but was only 11.5 inches in the chest.



Then, to put a little icing on the cake, I noted that Camilla Moon (the organizer of the rally) and I had bolted a fine red vixen out of a hole that was no bigger than this pipe just six days earlier.

Almost any vixen in the world can get through a 6-inch pipe if pressed by a dog, but almost no border terrier in America today can negotiate that pipe. People got this lesson one-on-one in a little patch of woods, and I tried to be very relaxed about it and noted (prior to getting to the pipe) that most dogs failed this part of the test. If a dog was anywhere close to being able to get into the pipe (even half its chest!) I said very nice things about it.

Nonetheless, the point was made, and it was a hard landing for some folks who had been on an extended flight of fancy about how they had "working" border terriers even though their dog has never even seen a fox. Some of these folks think a 9" square go-to-ground tunnel is what a fox den looks like!

Was bringing reality to these people a bastardly thing to do? Probably, but if you love the dogs (and I really do love border terriers) someone has to give an occasional lecture in REAL working terrier conformation and a brutal beating about chest size is more than called for at this point.

The fellow in the show ring judging the show dogs, by the way, was a "leading professional handler." Say no more!

I do not breed dogs, but if I did I think my program would depend on two 10-foot sections of 6 inch pipe. The bitch would have to go down the tube to get her food every day. When it came time for breeding, an adult dog (two years of age or over) would have to go down the tube to get to the bitch in order to do the job. No young stud dogs!

I'm absolutely serious about the pipe thing -- it's a tough test but anything too subjective and these breeders will gimmick it to death (as they have).

I am convinced that the human has to be take out of the test, and the fox put back in it. The 6-inch pipe does that job if a fox is not readily about (and how convenient for most breeder that it is not!).



The pipe used at the Border Terrier rally. This is my 12" Jack Russell and she is red-lining for size. I prefer a dog that is a little smaller, as chests tend to spring out and get a little harder in old age. This dog can still get down the pipe at age three and a half, but it is tougher than it used to be.




Same dog pushing through in a shallow field pipe loaded with roots. The real world is tougher than a smooth pipe, though I had once nice lady trying to tell me otherwise!



Same dog exiting a sette. Fox settes can be quite large or quite small -- sometimes in the same sette! A small dog can get anywhere, while a larger dog is limited to only the largest settes or else has to be dug to at the tight turns. Since prime fox season is only eight weeks long, and there is unlikely to be more than one occupied fox sette in any given 500 acres area, you want to be able to work every fox sette you can find. The goal is to get the dog up to the fox and have the dog have enough room or maneuver. If the dog is getting knackered, it may be because it cannot maneuver!

Jack Black and the Wistar Rat

A repost from March 2008

Jack Black was the official rat catcher for Queen Victoria. He wore a scarlet topcoat, waistcoat and breeches, and had a huge leather belt inset with cast-iron rats.

Black was, among other things, an accomplished dog breeder. Henry Mayhew, an English journalist and one of the founders of Punch magazine, quotes Black as saying:

"I had a little rat dog -- a black and tan terrier by the name of Billy which was the greatest stock dog in London of that day. He was the father of the greatest portion of small black tan dogs in London now. I've been offered a sovereign per pound (in weight) for some of my little terriers, but I wouldn't take that price .... My terrier dog was known to all the London fancy. As rat-killing dogs, there's no equal to that strain of black and tan terriers."

Jack Black had several sidelines to exterminating. He caught many rats and sold them for use in the rat pits -- an early form of double dipping that was ironic in that Queen Victoria sanctioned the RSPCA which was intent on driving the rat pits out of business.

In addition to exterminating and reselling rats, Black would occasionally catch unusual colored rats (albinos, dapples, yellows, hooded) and he began to breed these and sell off their progeny as pets (as he phrased it) "...to well-bred young ladies to keep in squirrel cages." Beatrix Potter was one of his customers, and even Queen Victoria kept a rat or two.

Black sold a small group of white rats to an animal dealer in France who bred them and sold them as pets to other people on the continent. These rats, in turn, were imported to Philadelphia where they served as the base genetic stock for the "Wistar Rat" used in labs all over the world (named after the Wistar Institute).

In a nutshell, the last rat pits of Victorian England led -- by a circuitous route -- to some of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the 20th Century. And we can thank Jack Black for all of it!

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Rat Poison and Wildlife Conservation

Rats are responsible for more animal extinctions than any other cause. The chief victims have been birds native to small tropical islands. Rats prey on both eggs and baby birds and, in some cases, adult flightless birds as well.

For this reason, rat poison may be the the single most important equipment in the world of bird conservation -- though using the right type in the right manner and in the right location is critical. In the wrong hands, rat poison can not only kill rats and mice -- it can kill birds, small native animals, fish, pets and even humans.

Winter poisoning is more effective than summer baiting, and effective use of rodenticides requires acclimating the rats to bait stations and the carrier food source (boiled eggs, corn meal, canary seed, water, etc.)

Rat eradication efforts benefit greatly by periodic switching of poison types, from warfarin (maintain for several months) to zinc phosphate, for example. Ultimately, effective long term rat eradication requires either removing food sources or maintaining a nearly-permanent poisoning regime.

A quick history of the most common types of rat poisons:

• Red Squill (Urginea or Scilla maritima) is a flowering plant native to the Mediterranean and was used as a rat poison as early as 1500 BC. The bulb of the red squill plant weighs up to four pounds and is sliced and dried before it is set out for rat consumption. Red squill is a safe poison because non-target animals that consume it invariably vomit to rid themselves of the toxin. Rats are unable to vomit, however, and so cannot purge their system of the toxins which eventually paralyze their hearts. Red squill has a very strong bitter taste and works well for a single time baiting situation, but rats quickly learn to stay away from it after that first dosing.
  
• Strychinine is a very old poison and may have been used by Alexander the Great's wife to poison him after he took a homosexual lover (who was poisoned at the same time). Strychnine originates from a small tree-like plant (Strychnos) once endemic to the Indus valley of India. A similar plant of the same family (but which grows in vine form) is used by the Indians of the Amazon to make curare -- a poison used to kill monkeys with poison-tipped darts. Rats tend to shy away from strychnine, but it is very effective on mice. Because strychnine is easy to abuse, and safer rodenticides are far more effective, access to this poison is now strictly controlled.
  
• Arsenic is another very old poison. Aristotle made reference to the poison "sandarach" (arsenic trisulfide) in the 4th century B.C. Arsenic was commonly sold as "Ratsbane" by the 1500s, and is mentioned by Shakespeare in Henry V, Part II ("I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security.") Arsenic is less effective and more toxic than other readily available rodenticides and is now almost never used for vermin work.
  
• Warfarin is a modern slow-kill repeat-bait poison and among the safest and most effective rat poisons in common use. Warfarin was discovered after Canadian cattle ate improperly stored sweet clover and began to hemorhage and die. In 1930 the active ingredient "coumarin" was isolated from this clover. In 1940 the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation patented a coumarin compounded called Warfarin (named after the foundation's initials). In 1952 warfarin was first used as an anticoagulant on humans, and today it (or some other coumarin derivative) is used by patients with artificial heart valves or who are in danger of thrombosis (blood clots). When used as a rodenticide, warfarin should be set out in feed-on-demand bait stations for at least two weeks. Other anticoagulants that work about the same as warfarin are brodifacoum, bromadiolone, chlorophacinone, diphacinone, fumarin, pival, and PMP. Some rat and mouse populations have become resistant to warfarin and other anti-coagulants -- a good reason to temporarily discontine warfarin after a few months and switch to zinc phosphate or another quick-killing raticide.
  
• Zinc Phosphide is an effective quick-kill poison and is readily available. It has an offensive odor (it smells like garlic) and is unattractive in color. Rats and mice seem to be attracted by the odor, however, and all species of rats and mice accept it. Zinc phosphide is not absorbed through the skin while mixing, and is not water soluable. Very occasionally animals die from eating the carcasses of rats or mice that have been killed with zinc phosphide, but this is so rare that zinc phosphide is listed as only a mildly hazardous rodenticide. Cause of death is heart failure.  Other type of phosphated rodenticides include Aluminum Phosphide and Calcium Phosphide.
  
• Norbormide (S-6999) is a new single-dose rat poison that is essentially nontoxic to humans and is odorless. Norbormide appears to be nontoxic to birds and other mammals including mice. It kills by constricting blood vessels and comes as a white powder. It is sold as Raticide, Raticate and Shoxin.
  
• Vacor 1080 (Sodium fluoroacetate) is an extremely powerful single-dose rodenticide. Death normally occurs 4 to 8 hours after ingestion, and little or no bait shyness develops since death generally follows ingestion. Vacor is available in a formulated ready-to-use bait mixture for licensed professional rat exterminators, but is generally not available to the lay public as it is a poison that is powerful enough to kill almost anything else that ingests the bait.
  
• Sodium Fluoroacetemude or 1081, is one of the most effective rodenticides known. It is virtually tasteless and odorless and kills in 1 to 8 hours. No tolerance or bait shyness develops. The drawbacks are that it is highly toxic to all animals, has no antidote, and has a high degree of secondary poisoning for animals eating rats or mice killed by the 1081 poison. As a result, 1081 is classified as extremely hazardous and is available for use only by licensed professional applicators. Cause of death is heart paralysis.
  
• Fumigants such as methyl bromide and hydro-cyanide gas are fast and effective controls for rats and mice in burrows or tightly closed buildings but should never be used by anyone other than licensed and trained professionals.
  
• Other Poisons No Longer Used. These poisons are more dangerous and/or not as effective as their readily-available alternatives: Barium carbonate, phosphorous paste (pictured in the French rat poison bottle at the top of this page), and Thallium sulfate.

Faking It With the Turtleman

Over on FlyRod+Reel Online, Chris Palmer notes that a recent David Attenborough special (Frozen Planet) filmed polar bears in a zoo while leading viewers to believe the animals were filmed in the Arctic wilderness.

This is not the first time nature films have faked nature.  As I noted in a previous post, there is no evidence that Honey Badgers have ever been guided to a hive by Honey Guide Birds -- the film showing that is entirely faked.

And what about all those photos and film you see of wild mountain lions?  They are almost certainly shot in large filmed enclosures with entirely tame animals. 

Remember all that film from Marty Stouffer's Wild America, and Marlin Perkins' Wild Kingdom, to say nothing of Walt Disney?  Yes, a great deal of that footage was faked too. 

Modern examples of fakery and outright lies include the ridiculous "Bear" Grylls television show which is replete with faked scenes, as well as the even more ridiculous "wolfman" show featuring Shaun Ellis.

Also faked are many of the hunting shows we see on TV today, where farm-raised animals are baited for weeks at specific locations before a film crew and a hunter fly in to shoot a few bullets and a little film on a very tight schedule.

You want to know how difficult it is to show a real hunt for real wild animals in real wilderness?   My suggestion is to read "The Luck of the Draw" by Lee Wulff in which he recounts the making of a bow hunting film he participated in, and which involving spotter airplanes and several weeks in the field in order to get a few seconds worth of usable film (after which the stalk-up to the animal was then faked recreated).

Wulff writes:

[I]t's hard for a guide to realize how accurately placed both archer and cameraman must be and how swift and sure each must perform in filming a kill. The cameraman must always have the sun at his back, regardless of wind direction. He must be far enough away to show both hunter and his game in his lens, yet close enough for the images to be sharp and clear. He must move quietly, start his camera before the action starts, and not stop the camera before the action is complete. However great the difficulties may be for a solo hunter, for a camera-hunter team they're increased a hundredfold.

Right.  And that's why so many of these television hunting shows are so often centered around canned or "high fence" hunts with semi-wild animals drawn to bait stations by "outfitters."

I bring all this up because fakery continues apace, even with the simplest of wildlife shots using the smallest of small game -- rats.

I was forwarded a link to this clip of the "Turtleman" who is now featured on the "Call of the Wildman" show being shown on the Discovery network. I have no doubt that Ernie Brown, Jr. (aka the Turtleman) has excellent wildlife hand-grabbing skills, but television wants drama and it seems that fakery is more than OK in the name of entertainment.

Those who know much about rats and home construction will spot the fakery pretty quickly.

For starters, look at the ceiling board that is about to be opened up here -- it's been patched. That's a little odd, but only a caution. What is not a caution is that once a hole is bashed into the ceiling, rats instantly come piling out of the hole as if they were being fed down a hopper placed directly above -- which do doubt they were.

You see, floor and ceiling joists are built on 16" or 24" centers with long parallel stretches running 10-30 feet or more, depending on the size of the floor. Punch a hole the size of your fist in a drywall ceiling, as shown here, and any rats running between the joists will simply stand back to avoid the commotion, or else bolt from the area altogether using the other hole that they used to get into the space to begin with.

This is not to say the rats will not swarm out of a ground hole if smoked. They will, and I have been there manning the smoker when they did it, but even here the numbers that explode from an ancient rat warren are not as large a number as seen here. This is ridiculous, and speaks to fakery and staging from a producer who did not know too much about rats.

Want another clue? Look at those rats going to the food. Yes, LOOK at those rats -- they are out in broad daylight, and they are not in the least bit nervous. Wild rats simply do not come out in broad daylight like this unless they are dazed from warfarin poison, or are running from one location to another. When they do come out, they do not enter the middle of an open floor to feed with humans moving around just a few feet away -- they run along the edges of walls.

Another clue to the fakery is that this basement does not seem to have much detritus or food lying around. Rats need food and water, and for a rat colony of this size to have developed over time, they would need access to a lot of very steady food -- bags of spilled grain or a full-scale garbage dump. Unless the home-owner here is a real hoarder with old pizza boxes strewn all over (and the cleanliness of this basement suggests they are not), then this bit of drama is staged from top to bottom.

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• Related Links:
  ** RatDog
  ** A Dedicated Rat Smoker
  ** Brilliant Web Site on Rat Biology

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Islands of Wolves, Rats, Lions and Dogs

Isle Royale, Michigan.  An island of wolves.

In the real world, population bottlenecks are not always quite as big a problem as some people imagine, nor are they quite as easy to correct as some people hope. 

If that sounds like two statements in direct opposition, then you have grasped a core message of this post, which is that not all animal populations are the same, that few real-world cases line up squarely with simple theory, and that there are multiple facets to both genetic isolation and genetic rescue.

In order to understand a little more, let's look at four real-world animal populations:

Imagine a pregnant rat jumps ship on to a large island that is 200 square miles in size.  The population of rats multiplies very rapidly but without any apparent long term problems due to inbreeding.  How is that possible?  Answer:  With rats, massive population numbers within a short period of time are possible, and a mid-sized island of 200 square miles (over 259,000 acres) can easily hold a million rats.  In this situation, genetic drift and mutation will eventually result in a population with little or no obvious genetic dysfunction.  On an island with 1,000,000 rats, in which each rat lives for a year or so, a 100-year old population of theoretically "inbred" rats will have very low coefficients of inbreeding, no inbreeding depression, and no discernible early mortality due to genetic weakness.  To be clear, this is not a theory; rats have colonized almost every island in the world exactly this way.

Now imagine that a pregnant wolf lands on an island that is 200 square miles in size.  The wolf whelps five pups, and the pups interbreed and the population grows for a time until it hits some sort of food-availability threshold.  A boreal island that is 200 square miles in size and with a sizable moose population can, for a while, feed a population of 50 wolves, but eventually that population can be expected to collapse down to as few as dozen individuals before it rises again and falls again due to the vagaries of disease and weather which will impact prey species such as moose, deer and rabbit.  After 75 years, the population of wolves on this island will be very inbred, and infecundity and disease will be common.  The reason for this is simple:  wolves typically live between six or seven years in the wild, and the smaller number of wolves on the island, combined with the smaller number of generations, means that there will be very little room for genetic drift or mutation.  Is is possible to import a single individual wolf to achieve a "genetic rescue" of this heavily inbred wolf population?  A single wolf, sadly, is not likely to do it.  The reason for this is simple:  the small number of wolves on the island (a population of 24, on average) and their high rate of infecundity due to inbreeding, means that the genes of the new male wolf will quickly dominate.  Inbreeding will then continue as before.  Though there may be a short temporal  improvement in population health, that may not be observed if there is a counter-balancing downtick in food sources occurring at the same time.  To be clear, this scenario is not one I have made up; it appears this is exactly what happened with the wolves on Isle Royale, Michigan.

Now imagine a large population of lions that has been reduced by hunting to just 30 individuals living on an isolated isthmus 200 square miles in size.  The population is so isolated that the coefficients of inbreeding within the lion population begin to rise, and a rise of infecundity and an increase in genetic defect is feared.   The good news, however, is that this isthmus is not at carrying capacity for lion, and so eight completely unrelated female lions are imported from another country more than 1,000 miles away -- a 25% population boost representing a massive increase in genetic diversity.  What happens?   A rather significant improvement in species health and fecundity seems to occur, and the lions begin colonizing more space on the isthmus.  Why did this genetic rescue work?  Well, for one thing, the original 30-lion population was more diverse than it at first appeared.  Remember that these 30 lions did not actually spring from a closed registry of two individuals, but were the remainder left from a massive population that once numbered scores of thousands.  While inbreeding to failure appeared to threaten this lion population, the actual genetic diversity beating under the hood was likely to be quite a bit more expansive than a purely mathematical population model would suggest.  Factor in the relative size of the genetic infusion coming from the other side of the country, and the ground is set up for a successful genetic rescue.  To be clear, this scenario is not one I have made up; this is exactly what happened with the lions of Southern Florida (aka, the Eastern Puma, Florida Panther, or Eastern Mountain Lion).

Now imagine a pair of dogs that are mated and their pups are then inbred to each other for 25 years at which time another dog is added to the population and the result is further inbred for another 40 years.  The result is a population of about 180 potential breeding dogs (30 dogs are born a year, and not all dogs will be bred) which have a Coefficient of Inbreeding of 80 percent.  What would it take to have a successful genetic rescue here?  If we use the Florida Panther model as a guide, we would need to see an addition of 45 new dogs to the gene pool.  Would the addition of  one or two dogs be enough to turn the tide?   Probably not.   The addition of only a handful of dogs in a show-breed situation, where dominant sire selection will continue unabated, will not provide the genetic fix needed to turn things around.  Remember we are starting here with a very high COI, and the public demand for these dogs is apparently quite low; this is a breed that hits its consumer "carrying capacity" with just 30 to 40 puppies a year.  To be clear, this scenario is not one I have made up; the dog presented here is the Cesky terrier, a breed that has never been very popular.

So what's the point? 
 
The point is this:  the issues associated with population bottle necks are not quite as simple as some imagine.  Yes, the relative size of the founding population matters, but so too does the genetic health of the founding population, the total number of animals bred, the number of generations it took for the population to achieve a large size, and whether the animal in question was breeding randomly or within an organized scheme that encouraged (or discouraged) genetic diversity.

Consider, for a moment, a dog breed that was drawn into a closed registry 120 years ago with 150 dogs in its foundation registry.  The breed grew rather quickly so that after 40 years it had a worldwide population of 125,000 dogs; a population it has maintained for the last 80 years.  Coefficients of inbreeding in the modern population of this dog will, on the whole, be quite low, and though the apparent "effective population size" may have dropped from 150 dogs to 80 dogs due to dominant sire selection, effective population size is quite a meaningless number when you have bred well north of 1 million dogs over a 100-year span.  In a situation like this diversity is not destroyed over time, but created through the sheer beat of numbers over vast distances.
 
Of course, there is another factor in all this, and it is an important one, and one that is too often left out.

You see, in the world of Kennel Club dogs there has always been a little "pedigree leakage."  

Pedigree leakage may be small or even nonexistent in a very rare breed where everyone knows everyone else, and the dog in question is likely to look a bit odd or extreme and not have an obvious analog in another breed or cross-breed.

But what of the other more popular breeds, where there are a lot more dogs in the wind, and only a small number are likely to ever see the inside of a show ring, and analogs exist all over? 

In a situation like this, instead of a reduction in effective population size, there may actually be a little growth! 

After all, a Labrador Retriever with five-generation pedigree papers from the AKC may, in fact, have a Flat-coated sire, or even be whelped by a cross-bred dog of "pedigree unknown." 

A Miniature Poodle may have a little Maltese coursing through its veins only a generation or two back. 

And what does it matter?  Not a whit if the cross was a sound one and did not add a new or heavier genetic load to the mix.

The bottom line is that there is more to population genetics than any one number, and while it's important to be worried, and to take action to increase breed genetic diversity, it's equally important to recognize that one can fall in love with less than robust genetic theory and falsely specific numbers just as easily as one can fall in love with cocked up doggy histories and the romance of breed purity.   In the end, population science and genetics is about more than one number; it's about a small stack of numbers meeting a real gene pool coursing through the flesh and blood of a real population that is living in a real environment (whether wild or artificial, free-feeding or subsidized).

Yes, let us work to increase diversity, but let us also look towards Mother Nature as well. 

Remember that while Mother Nature abhors closed breed pools, she also manages to work out solutions for most of those that wash up as single or paired animals on tropical islands or are introduced to foreign lands.  Observe the birds in the park.  How many Starlings did we start off with here in America?  How many English Sparrows?  How many Red Fox?   How many wolves in Yellowstone?  They are clearly thriving.  How is that possible?  And, of course, the answer is that they colonized in vast numbers over a vast space of land, and in the slow beat of numbers and space they managed forge their own genetic health.
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Gassing the Rats, 1931

From the July 1931 edition of Modern Mechanix we learn how to use a Model T Ford to kill off rats down on the farm.  
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Queen Victoria's Jack Russells

This post originally appeared on this blog in August 2007.

Queen Victoria put the "royal" into the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and yet she also employed a professional rat catcher by the name of Jack Black who not only supplied rats to the pits, but who was also the first collector of odd-colored rats that were later bred for dedicated medical research.

Queen Victoria had a phenomenal number of dogs around her -- dachshunds and collies, various types of terriers, pugs, and pomeranians, to name just a few breeds.

The picture above shows Prince Louis of Hesse, Princess Beatrice, Queen Victoria, Alicky, Ernst of Hesse, Duchess of Connaught and daughter with three white foxing terriers (what we would call "Jack Russells" today) of the type that were common in her day.

The dogs are, from left to right, "Wat", "Gay Girl" and "Spot".

The photo, below, was taken at Balmoral in October of 1882.  The Reverend Jack Russell would die the next year.

Queen Victoria, Arthur, Beatrice and Spot, Balmoral in 1876

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Cash Incentives Work!

Burma put a bounty on rat tails and this is what happened. 
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Least Likely to Get a Date This Week

Wow. What a catch. And Catholic too. This seems to be very important, as she repeats it several times.  No, I have no idea why that is important, but it is.  Ask her.  Go on, I dare you....
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Human Vs. Rat Maze Challenge

Never underestimate a rat.

Rats are used in labs to measure intelligence, they have steered rockets in space, and they have not only survived, but thrived, on nearly every poison thrown at them.

They can swim 2 miles out to sea, dive more than 50 feet, exert bite pressure of 24,000 pounds, and chew through drywall and metal.

Never bet against the rat, unless there is a terrier in the game.
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Terriers at the Tar Pit

 

Dogs from the early 1980s were decidedly smaller than the Plummers seen today. 

Like all working terriers, a Plummer Terrier is a composite animal. The Plummer is made mostly out of Jack Russell, with a strong dash of beagle (added for nose, voice and coat color), and bull terrier (added for toughness and head size). A fell terrier was mixed in to improve the overall appearance. 

This strain of terriers, first created by Brian Plummer in the late 1970s and 80s, started out -- by Plummer's own admission -- as genetic wrecks with shot jaws, an ugly appearance, foul tempers, and a tendency to be mute.

For anyone with a lick of sense, a caution flag should now pop up: Who in their right mind begins to breed from such a canine mess?

Brian Plummer did. After a long period of outbreeding and culling, obvious genetic problems were worked out of the breed, but a new problem worked its way in -- today's dogs are often too big for truly tight underground work. Perhaps that is not a problem if you are developing a dog just for ratting, but was a new ratting dog actually needed?

In fact, is any new terrier breed needed? Is it too much to ask people to simply preserve and work the terrier breeds we already have?

It is not a question Plummer asked, and now the point is moot. The dog that has been created is attractive, and they certainly have their fans. The question now is whether the breed will make it as a worker among workers, will remain a generalized ratting terrier, or will be pulled into the Kennel Club to be little more than another show-ring trotter.

If salvation is to be had, it is in the hands of those few genuine diggers and dedicated ratters that are trying to size down the breed and keep it working (to one thing or another) on a regular basis. A proper nod to such people -- they certainly exist even if there are not too many of them.

If doom is to rear its head, it is in the form of internecine rivalries between breed clubs, hump-and-dump breeders, and rosette chasers that do not work their own dogs.

In fact, this is a threat to all working dogs of all breeds, and the Plummer terrier is no different.

As for Brian Plummer himself, he is dead, and presumably not too concerned with critics of his dogs, his books, or himself.

His books live on, and continue to be very fun reads, and deserve their spot in the lexicon of terrier literature.

They are certainly no worse than any others, and quite a bit better than most.

There seems to be universal agreement that Brian Plummer himself was a little odd. He liked to bait others into intemperance, and he was said — without any evidence I have heard— to lift stories from others and present them as his own. He wrote an entire book, under a pseudonym, in which he variously quoted and criticized his own books -- a decidedly odd thing to do.

Plummer suffered from both depression (a true illness) and very marginal finances, and cranked out Cavalier King Charles Spaniels for cash even as he dabbled in recreating "lost" breeds like the Lucas Terrier and the Alaunt -- breeds that had slid into extinction in generations past because they no longer had a rational reason for existence or preservation. Today Plummer's "Lucas Terrier" is a scruffy show ring dog, while his "Alaunt" appears to be little more than a variation of the pig-working pitbull so common in the American South.

While he was alive, Plummer was drowning in dogs -- Bearded Collies, Alaunts, Lurchers, Plummer Terriers, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, fell terriers, and White German Shepherds, to name just a few. He could not possibly have had time to work so many dogs, and those who visited his kennels reported they were often in a disgraceful state of upkeep.

That said, Plummer's books and dogs remain. Plummer terriers continue to rat and even work fox to ground if placed in the right hands.

The fact that some dogs do indeed work to ground seems to cause some distress to people that despised the man for his pretensions and slights. The fact that relatively few dogs work to ground, is similarly distressing to the other side. No matter. The dogs are what they are, same as the books.

The trouble ahead for the Plummer terrier appears to be a rush, by a foolish few, to usher the Plummer terrier into the tar pit of the Kennel Club, from which no other working breed has ever emerged intact and still working.

Tar pits look benign -- cool water tends to pool on top -- but nothing has ever come out of them but bones.

In the case of the Kennel Club, what has emerged, time and time again, are exaggerated dogs devoid of working instinct, nose, and common sense, with coats inappropriate for the job, and skeletal structures that are often inadequate for a day in the field.

No one who courses dogs looks to a Kennel Club dog to do the job, and the same is true for working sled dogs, herding dogs, cart dogs, pointers, setters, and retrievers.

Terriers are not an exception to the rule.

The key and recurring problem with working terriers drawn into the Kennel Club-- from Fox terriers to Sealyhams, Borders, Jack ("Parson") Russells to Fell ("Welsh") Terriers -- is size.

Why do working terrier breeds always seem to get too big in the chest after being listed on Kennel Club roles? 

The answer is to be found in an inherent defect of the show ring, and a basic understanding of canine anatomy.

The essential elements of a working terrier are small chest size, strong prey-drive, a loud voice, a sensitive nose, and a clever kind of problem-solving intelligence.

Aside from size, none of these attributes can be judged at ringside.

In a judging field of 20 or 30 dogs, a selection filter of size alone does not provide the gradients required to articulate a reason for choosing a single dog or bitch as a winner.

The breed club solution has been to generate pages of cosmetic criteria which effectively devalue the only important attribute of a working terrier that can be judged in the ring — a small chest.

And it is no small matter that chest size is defined rather vaguely -- the span of a man's hand. Whose hand? Wilt Chamberlain's? In a world of micrometers, surely there is solid research on the true size of fox chests all over the world? Yet it is not used, because Kennel Club pretenders with hulking dogs find it easier to breed good-looking large dogs than small well-proportioned working dogs.

In the Kennel Club, head size and shape are deemed to be very important by theorists who assign a great number of points to this feature (see the Border Terrier for an example). It is head shape, after all, that gives each breed its distinctive look. It is the head that faces the quarry in the hole.

Surely the shape and size of a terrier's head is important?

In fact, when it comes to working terriers, head shape is only important to the extent that it leaves space for brains, produces a strong enough jaw to grip, and allows for unobstructed breathing.

Most crossbred mongrel terriers have heads shaped well enough to do the job.

As for size, in the world of working terriers, a bigger head is not necessarily better -- a point that is often overlooked by theorists who have spent far more time listening to show ring judges than they have their own dogs working their way through a tight den pipe.

Larger heads tend to be attached to larger chests — the latter being necessary to support the former. When terriers are bred for the "bully heads" that Kennel Club judges favor, the resulting dog is often large-chested as well.

It does not take too much gain in the chest for a dog to have quickly diminishing use in the field -- a point easily overlooked if you spend more hours at shows than you do with a shovel in the field.

Paths to destruction are often well-worn. The Plummer terrier is apparently sliding straight down the Kennel Club chute that so many other terrier breeds have gone down before.

The current rage is now to "out cross" Plummer terriers with bull terriers in order to "improve" and "strengthen" the head, which a few show ring breeders claim has grown "snipey."

Whatever. It is their dog to breed and do with as they see fit. Each to his or her own, etc.

The fact that terrier breed after terrier breed has fallen into the Kennel Club trap of exaggerated heads and overlarge chests will not stop others from following on, any more than the predicament of a trapped Mastodon at the La Brea tar pits served as a warning to the Dire Wolf and Saber Tooth that followed.

Will the entire breed disappear into the tar pit? Time will tell. The tar is cunning, powerful and above all patient. It waits. Time will tell if it is fed.

  A dire wolf and a saber tooth at the tar pit. "It looked like a good idea at the time." . This post is recycled from April 2006.

Poisoning Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island

As I have noted in the past, rats are responsible for more animal extinctions than any other cause. The chief victims have been birds native to small tropical islands. Rats prey on both eggs and baby birds and, in some cases, adult flightless birds as well.

For this reason, rat poison may be the the single most important equipment in the world of bird conservation -- though using the right type in the right manner and in the right location is critical. In the wrong hands, rat poison can not only kill rats and mice -- it can kill birds, small native animals, fish, pets and even humans.

Now comes word that the government of Australia intends to helicopter 42 tons of rat poison to Lord Howe Island, 370 miles off the coast of Australia, in order to wipe out black rats that first came to that island on a ship in 1918. Lord Howe Island is considered to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Since their arrival, rats have wiped out four species of endemic birds and the Lord Howe Stick Insect. The Lord Howe Stick Insect was considered extinct for 80 years until a handful were found in the leaf litter under a single bush on "Ball's Pyramid," a small, very steep, nearly nude rocky escarpment of an island several miles away from Lord Howe Island.

If the rats can be wiped off of Lord Howe Island, the goal is to breed and reintroduce the large Stick Insect back to its native land.



The Lord Howe rat eradication effort will involve capturing and caging native birds -- along with penning up dogs, cats, cows, and chickens -- in order to transport them all off the island for a period of 100 days while the poisoning operation is in full swing.

Rats have been eradicated from islands only a few times before, and in all occasions, it has involved a tremendous amount of poison bait used for a long time.

It's worth remembering that the rat is a survivor -- they survived the nuclear blasts on Pacific atolls and actually prospered under those conditions, living on dead creatures and plant life that washed up on the beach.

One of the few examples of successful rat eradication on an island is Campbell Island, south of New Zealand. Rats got to the island via whaling ships, and destroyed the nesting grounds of the flightless teal and wading duck.

In 2002 the government of New Zealand used 120 tons of rat poison on the island (over 240,000 pounds), delivered by boat and helicopter. About 200,000 rats died, but not without some mishap. A tanker carrying 18 tons of rat poison sank in a whale breeding ground, and there was some temporary contamination of the local mussel population.
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Rats and Extinctions

A repost from this blog circa August 2004.

Believe it or not, rats have been responsible for more species extinctions than anything else. The reason for this is that so many of the animals that have been pushed into extinction have been indigenous ground-nesting birds living on small islands. Once rats are introduced in these locations, eggs and hatchlings are predated upon, bird populations plummet, and extinction often follows.

Rats have been eradicated from islands only a few times, and in all occasions, it has involved a tremendous amount of poison bait used for a long time.

It's worth remembering that the rat is a survivor -- they survived the nuclear blasts on Pacific atolls and actually prospered under those conditions, living on dead creatures and plant life that washed up on the beach.

One of the few examples of successful rat eradication on an island is Campbell Island, south of New Zealand. Rats got to the island via whaling ships, and destroyed the nesting grounds of the flightless teal and wading duck.

In 2002 the government of New Zealand used 120 TONS of rat poison on the island (over 240,000 pounds), delivered by boat and helicopter. About 200,000 rats died, but not without some mishap. A tanker carrying 18 tons of rat poison sank in a whale breeding ground, and there was some mild (and probably temporary) contamination of the local mussel population.

In any case, the rats are now gone, the whales are OK, and so too are the mussels. The teal and ducks are set to be re-introduced from captive populations. This is a very rare example of success in the war against rats.
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