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Which means that Wolves Here Town is not too far from the truth.”
Fascinated, NutJob wants to know more, “and when did the wolves disappear? And when did they come back? And how did they come back?”
“I could talk about this for hours,” says Franklin, “but it’s nearly 18:00 and you two have work to do! All you’re getting right now is a snapshot!”
She goes on to explain that in about 1400AD the last wolf in the British Isles was cornered on a spit of land near Grange Over Sands at the southern tip of the Lake District. Trapped on Humphrey Head, with the sea on three sides, the wolf was killed by a man called John Harrington.
“For thousands of years,” explains Franklin, “ this country had no Eurasian Grey Wolves. Until they were reintroduced into the Scottish Highlands in small numbers, as a carefully controlled scientific experiment. Then the world changed. The Decimation meant that many science projects were abandoned, forgotten, or neglected. The wolves spread out in all directions.”
“At the same time, places known as ‘zoos’ and ‘safari parks’ could no longer care for their animals. Many of them were put down. Some of them were turned into food. And a few were released into the wild.”
“If the species were native to these islands then they were to be set free in a controlled and staged release. And, of course, by 2162 that included wolves. So that led to the wild wolves from Scotland mingling with the newly released captive wolves from everywhere else, and the population slowly increased. The first part of the journey was the controlled release from the animal parks. The initial release worked as planned, but then when staffing levels collapsed, the final batches of animals were all released at the same time, including some non native species. Now, there are more black panthers than ever before in Dorset. There are colonies of wallabies all over Mannin and throughout Dartmoor. And all over the Peak District! Across the nine deserts of East Anglia there were
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