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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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Monday, July 01, 2013

GLEN VAUDREY'S WHOLE WIDE WORLD #31. England


31. England
In spite of the fact that some folk think that there is hardly any part of England that has not been built on there are still many places for mystery animals to be found lurking in this green and pleasant land.
There have been reports of creatures ranging from big cats to huge black dogs foretelling doom, and tales of lakes that against all expectations have been reported to contain creatures from crocodiles to mermaids. There are even enough ghostly rabbits to give Elmer Fudd nightmares. However I am going to look at one of those reported sightings of an exotic animal that is just out of place.

Back in 1974 motorist Joan Gilbert was driving along Western Avenue in Bournemouth when she saw a strange animal illuminated in the beam of her headlights, she would recall that ‘it was the most peculiar animal I have ever seen, half cat and half dog. It had stripes, a long thin tail and seemed to be grey… with some yellow on it. Its ears were set back like a member of the cat family, and it was as big as a medium sized dog. It was thin and definitely not a fox.’

On later looking at an animal book while trying to identify the nature of the beast she identified an animal that looked the part: a Thylacine.

Like many mystery animal sightings it does seem to leave more questions than answers. The Thylacine is officially extinct in its native Tasmania (saying that, there are still reported sightings). As for a population of them living wild in the UK there has never been a hint of such a thing.

Next stop Wales and another mystery animal to look out for.

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