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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, November 25, 2013

CRYPTOLINK: The Tasmanian Tiger is not extinct

Tasmanian tigerA word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. 


The thylacine is not extinct.
I say this without reservation. I don’t suppose the thylacine (or Tasmanian tiger) remains extant, or imagine, or even hope it is; I know categorically that the thylacine exists, because I have seen it in the flesh. I have also heard it and smelt it over the past 20 years and handled some mighty convincing eyewitness reports along the way. I have written extensively about the animal for various newspapers over the years, and my first book, Tiger Tales, was a collection of stories concerning old bushmen I interviewed, their sightings and recollections of the tiger as well as other sightings spanning the past 100 years.
But I am not relying on the testimony of others to convince me this animal is extant, I am backing my own judgement in declaring what I have actually observed.
It appears that I do this at risk of my own reputation, for I am only too aware that once I declare these truths, the sceptic brigade — bless their atheistic little hearts — immediately pounce like ravening wolves, gnashing their teeth, frothing at the mouth and hammering their extinction drums in my face in doing their level best to make me out to be a raving imbecile, a serial hoodwinker, or at worst a sadly disillusioned senile old tiger hunter who should be committed to an asylum. But honestly, such flattery, such adulation, such hero worship, such reverence is like the proverbial water off the duck’s back.
I know what I know, and that apparently is a darned lot more than my sceptics.
I have been searching for the thylacine for the past 46 years. The highlight was when I actually came face-to-face with a Tasmanian tiger in March 1995 in the Weld Valley wilderness of south-west Tasmania.
I well remember back in the 1940s-’50s era being drawn time and time again to the museum’s thylacine display, a particularly imposing and educational diorama of a group of thylacines in a splendid bush setting; I have never forgotten it. Although I didn’t place any great emphasis on the exhibit at the time, it remained firmly fixed in my memory, and it may have somehow provided the nucleus for my later adulation of this unique animal. Visiting the museum several years ago I was invited down to the storage area and inquired as to what had become of the thylacine diorama exhibit, but apparently no one knew where it was, if indeed it still existed.

CFZ AUSTRALIA TASMANIA EXPEDITION: A round-up of news stories


Zoologists hunting Tasmanian tiger declare 'no doubt' species still ... The Guardian
A team of investigators from the Centre for Fortean Zoology, which operates from a small farmhouse in north Devon, is currently in Tasmania hunting down clues ...
See all stories on this topic »
Tasmanian Tiger Still Exists? New Hunt For Extinct Thylacine Begins International Business Times
A group of British naturalists belonging to the Centre for Fortean Zoology have begun a photogenic search for the extinct Tasmanian tiger in the region's isolated ...
See all stories on this topic »
Extinct Tasmanian Tiger Really Alive? Paw Nation
Groundwork laid in tiger search Tasmania Examiner
Over the past 10 days the UK- based Centre of Fortean Zoology has trekked through the rugged North-West to interview witnesses and collect potential thylacine ...
See all stories on this topic »
Thylacine sightings Tasmania Examiner
The animal that died in Hobart at the zoo was the last thylacine in captivity. Not the last one of the species. There were plenty more seen in the wild after that.
See all stories on this topic »

 

TODAY'S BIG CAT ROUND UP



The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. 

There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. 

The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why, sometimes, you will read stories here which appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology, but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking. 


  • NEWSLINK: Could Faux-Leopard Print Save Big Cats?...
  • NEWSLINK: IUCN and WWF forge tiger conservation a...
  • NEW ZEALAND SIGHTINGS: Panther
  • SIGHTINGS
  • UK SIGHTINGS: West Sussex 4th August 2013
  • VIDEO: Leopards in the UK? Truthloader goes big c...
  • SCOTLAND SIGHTINGS: 9 Aug 2013
  • VIDEO: The Lioness And The Leopard
  • VIDEO: Leopard Queen HD
  • USA SIGHTINGS: Documentary
  • USA SIGHTINGS: Mystery black cat sightings around...
  • SCOTLAND SIGHTINGS: Mystery cat sighting near Lock...
  • NEWSLINK: UK Evidence of British big cats discover...
  • USA SIGHTINGS: Mystery Animal Seen Lurking In Bloo...


  • NEWSLINK: Villagers in Edmundbyers living in fear...

  • FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

    In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.





    DALE DRINNON: Unknown species notice, Frontiers of Anthropology, Benny's Blogs

    New at Frontiers of Zoology:
    http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/11/unknown-species-notice.html New at Frontiers of Anthropology:
    http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2013/11/elongated-skulls-in-mexico.html
    New at Benny's Blog for Thelma Todd:
    http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/2013/11/hugh-herbert.html
    New at Benny's Other Blog, The Ominous Octopus Omnibus:
    http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/2013/11/hugh-herbert.html http://bennypdrinnon.blogspot.com/2013/11/misty-at-comic-book-convention.html

    Best Wishes, Dale D.

    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS RESTED

     The Gonzo Daily - Monday
    I spent nearly all of yesterday asleep and I feel much refreshed this morning as a result. Richard arrives back this afternoon for a couple of days, and tomorrow Saskia, the schoolgirl who spent a week with us nearly two years ago, comes back for another period of interning, or internship or whatever the word is. However, she isn't a schoolgirl any more and is a young lady at college. We have various other visitors scheduled for the week, including a well known TV scriptwriter this afternoon (together with our compadre and good friend Mark Raines) and a belly dancer on thursday night (I kid you not), and on wednesday afternoon I shall be chatting to the ever-lovely Judy Dyble about shoes and ships and sailing wax. So a jolly week lies ahead.
    Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/11/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_25.html
    A bit of rock and roll history: The “Smoke on the Water” Incident On December 4, 1971.(Claude Nobs)
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/11/smoke-on-waterincident-on-december-4.html
    *  The Gonzo Daily is a two-way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at  jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work or even just say hello, please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

    *  The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link:
    www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
    * We should probably mention here that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

    *  Jon Downes, the editor of all these ventures (and several others), is an old hippy of 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon, which he shares with various fish and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus... did we mention the orange cat?

    NICK REDFERN: Flying Humanoids: The Dark Side

    mothman-watches
    For my first article of this week, I thought I would do something a bit different: namely a review of a lecture I attended just this past weekend. It was given by good friend and fell0w seeker of strange creatures, Ken Gerhard. Ken drove up to the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area early Sunday morning – from his San Antonio home – to speak at the monthly meeting of a local group, EPIC, the Extraordinary Phenomena Investigations Council.

    The subject of Ken’s lecture was his latest book, Encounters with Flying Humanoids, which, as its title suggests, is an in-depth study of a wide and varied range of bizarre, winged, human-like creatures – with Mothman being, without any doubt, the most famous example. I reviewed Ken’s book here a couple of months ago, but there’s another reason I want to highlight it today. And that is – and as Ken spelled out time and again in his illustrated presentation on Sunday - the many and disturbing occasions upon which encounters with winged humanoids have seemingly provoked immediate (and sometimes lasting) bouts of ill-health or disaster. Or even both at the same time.

    Indeed, it’s almost as if these nightmarish entities have the literal ability to “infect” us in some weird and unsettling manner, not just with disease and illness but als0, rather disturbingly, with what might be called near-endless bad luck. But how, precisely, they do that and why, are very different matters. As Ken’s lecture made abundantly clear, however, crossing paths with the weird winged things of our world can be profoundly dangerous.

    OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

    Yesterday’s News Today
    http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

    On this day in 1952 Agatha Christie's play, The Mousetrap, had its first performance in London. It has become the longest continuously running play in the world.

    And now the news:


  • Designer Monika Jarosz creates luxury bags using d...
  • Hatchling lizards are smarter than you think - via...
  • Two men rescue moose-eating beached shark
  • Horse, man make trek across country
  • Pesticide ban keeps bees safe
  • Minneapolis police rescue fighting dogs in big swe...
  • NC beach communities wary of proposed turtle rules...


  • Residents rise up to protect pet potbellied pig na..

  • If you had any sort of childhood you'll be familiar with the game Mousetrap... Well, this hardcore version of the Heath-Robinson-style mechanism will both excite and amuse:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_MEfM6YPy0