WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Saturday, May 09, 2009

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER


Oll (Gawd bless 'im) has just found a photograph that I had thought was lost forever. It was originally supposed to appear in The Owlman and Others to illustrate the following passage:
Playing ‘Yin’ to the ‘Yang’ provided by Morgawr was ‘Beaky’ the Dolphin. He was generally regarded as somewhat of a pet by local people. A local witch called Miranda, who has been invaluable in my researches into evetything connected with this (and the) case, told me that he could often be seen in the enclosed harbour beneath the Chain Locker pub on the waterfront where he would perform in the water and live royally on scraps of food thrown to him by locals and tourists alike.

By the time we got to Falmouth 20 years later, ‘Beaky’ was long gone and the only animal inhabitant of the tiny harbour was a large and rather moth eaten looking seal, with one eye, who was obviously filling the same ecological niche that ‘Beaky’ had filled twenty years before, by lolling on the surface and begging for scraps of cheese sandwiches from the occupants of a small pleasure cruiser tied up to the harbour wall.

YOU HAVE TO LOVE TIM THE YOWIE MAN

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Weird-Weekend-tickets-2009_W0QQitemZ380096466148QQihZ025QQcategoryZ1306QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

I would hate anyone to think that I am only showing this brief film clip to publicise Tim the Yowie Man's upcoming appearance at the 2009 Weird Weekend, to be held on August 14-6 in North Devon, very reasonably priced at twenty quid for the whole weekend, available at the link above, because I am not. That would be grossly unfair of any of you to suggest such a thing.


SOME DAY MY PRINTS WILL COME

This picture came in late last night from Chris B (16) a friend of my increasingly disreputable nephew (and chosen heir) Dave Braund-Phillips.

Chris and a mate were driving back to his home near Shebbear (yup, the place where The Devil incarnate is supposed to live under a large rock, even though the only time we looked we could find nothing but woodlice) from their college near Camborne in Cornwall when they stopped near a humpbacked bridge (probably for nefarious purposes involving two one-time friends of mine named Mr Benson and Mr Hedges, but we won't go into that). There they found this print in the mud patch by the side of the road, and photographed it using Chris's fist as a scale...

Sadly, we reckon that its probably a dog, but we thought that it was worth sharing it. Ironically it is the smaller footprint in the above right of the picture that I find more intriguing, but that is the way that the cookie crumbles.

THE TOP TENS FOR APRIL

UK



1= The Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Kent by Neil Arnold (1)
2= Dark Dorset by Mark North and Robert Newland (-)
2= Dr Shuker's Casebook by Dr Karl Shuker (4)
4 Extraordinary Animals Revisited by Dr Karl Shuker (1)
5= In the wake of Bernard Heuvelmans by Michael Woodley (5)
5= Monster of the Mere by Jonathan Downes (-)
7 Big Bird by Ken Gerhard (2)
8= The Owlman and Others by Jonathan Downes (4)
8= The CFZ Yearbook 2009 (-)
10 Dinosaurs and other Prehistoric Animals on Stamps by Dr Karl Shuker (-)


US



1= Dr Shuker's Casebook by Dr Karl Shuker (2)
1= Man Monkey - In Search of the British Bigfoot by Nick Redfern (5)
1= The Owlman and Others by Jonathan Downes (-)
4= Extraordinary Animals Revisited by Dr Karl Shuker (1)
4= Big Bird by Ken Gerhard (2)
4= Monster - the A-Z of Zooform Phenomena by Neil Arnold (4)
4= The Island of Paradise by Jonathan Downes (-)
8= Dinosaurs and other Prehistoric Animals on Stamps by Dr Karl Shuker (-)
8= A&M vol 3 - The Call of the Wild (7)
8= A&M vol 1 - In the Beginning (-)


Last month's positions in this pinky colour which I think is called cerise

THE BIG THREE: Only 24 Hours left

After weeks of faffing about, we will be launching our series "The Big Three" tomorrow (sunday) evening. And there is still time for YOU to get involved. Each of the regular blogging crew will be writing a brief essay on the three mystery animals that intrigue them most, and why. There are only a couple of rules:

1. The three cryptids must be ones that have some chance of existing. Not purely mythological creatures or something esoteric from a movie or comic book.

2. Make them different. I would very much rather not have three long necked lake monsters from three adjacent lakes Apart from that, its up to you. So get blogging!

A TALENTED NEW CANADIAN SCULPTOR

The other day I received an email from a bloke called `Aubrey` who is a Canadian sculptor who happens to be a fan of On The Track. He writes:

"I am also the most prolific wood carver of whales anywhere; presently I have carved over 250 whales. I have in my collection every known species of whale, dolphin and porpoise. It was after watching one of your video clips that I discovered yet another the Bolivian Dolphin. It is now scheduled to be carved this spring; I need to keep my collection up to date."

The guy is brilliant, and - with his permission - I shall be featuring some of his pictures prominently over the next few weeks. But to start off with here is a video..



MEET THE NEW BOSS, THE SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

It appears from the news stories that, despite hopes to the contrary US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has announced that he will not rescind a “special rule” created by the Bush administration that sharply limits protections for the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.

"For Salazar to adopt Bush's polar bear extinction plan is confirming the worst fears of his tenure as Secretary of the Interior," said Noah Greenwald, biodiversity program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Secretary Salazar would apparently prefer to please Sarah Palin than to protect polar bears."

Unless I am being really dense this is a cynical act by someone who has only one motive: to protect the status quo, and to preserve the capitalist hegemony at all costs.

I have been accused over the past few months of overly attacking American Republican Politicians. I hope that this post clatifies that. It is not Republican politicians that I despise, but all politicians who put financial considerations ahead of moral ones.

And people wonder why I am an anarchist!

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday’s News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

Today is Saturday so you get a sound track while you read the latest cryptozoology news. Because yesterday (which is the day I’m writing this up) was the 8th of May it would be rude of me not to have Motörhead’s song about that date as my song of the week… So here we go: http://www.last.fm/music/Mot%C3%B6rhead/_/Ace+of+Spades?autostart
And now, the news:

'Worst ever' animal neglect case
World frog trade spreading killer diseases
Big cat on the prowl
Obama keeps Bush polar bear rules
Gorilla mums keep family in check
And
World's smallest pigs 'thriving'

What is a pig’s favourite sitcom? ‘Pork’ and Mindy.