The account of the restoration of the wolf’s skeleton conserved at Kendal Museum (Gazette, August 11, ‘Wolf’s skeleton is to be restored’) is a reminder that even rarer locally extinct species once inhabited our area.
In 1844 J Ruthven reported that while examining ‘a limestone cavern beautifully covered with translucent stalactites’ on Arnside Knott he discovered ‘amongst debris of bones, claws and teeth, fragments of hyenas and brown bears’.
Subsequently, in circa 1880, a Mr Beecham obtained other ‘ursine (bear) remains at Helsfell including the basal portion of a young bear and at least two large bones’. These were ‘considered to be identical with those found at Arnside’.
I assume that the 1844 finds have long been lost but I wonder if the non-wolf bones from Helsfell are at Kendal Museum and, if so, whether they could at least be partially re-assembled.
Nevertheless congratulation to the museum for looking after ‘our wolf’.
Roger K Bingham
Ackenthwaite
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