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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Thursday, December 05, 2013

CRYPTOLINK: Bigfoot Undercover

A 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. 

"Do you know what it’s really going to take to find real evidence of Bigfoot?" my friend, author, and videographer Philip Spencer recently asked me in a conversation we’ve revisited many times.

"What?" I asked with only somewhat renewed curiosity. The subject’s become a bit overstated, over-used, over-discussed. We all know the answers we’ve heard and talked about ourselves. But Philip, being a woodsman himself from rural Kentucky, and having spent much of his early life in the wilderness of the Daniel Boone National Forest, had something different to say.

"Well, no one’s probably going to do this, but somebody needs to go out into the most remote areas of wilderness and live out there for months…or maybe even years like an animal. Become part of the landscape. Integrate into the wild to the point that every living thing there gets used to you being there and hopefully even comfortable with you being there."

"Kind of an extreme Jane Goodall approach?" I asked.

"Something like that," Philip said. "But you’d have to have a master plan in place. You’d have to be an expert woodsman, tracker, and survivalist. I mean a hard-core survivalist. One that could almost walk into the wild naked and be able to survive with next to nothing."

"That would be the ultimate hunting expedition," I acknowledged, feeling sure that I’d never have to worry about reporting it in my lifetime, because no one would be willing to take on such a task. It would be the ultimate sacrifice from a very special kind of person that might have to dedicate a lifetime to the cause.

He continued. "You’d also have to be prepared to get dirty and stay that way. You’d be too cold or too hot and generally uncomfortable, and you’d be focused on survival and finding food most of the time…just like any other animal out there. While at the same time, you’d have to be tech-savy and carry cameras and other surveillance and evidence-collecting equipment without being obvious about it. It wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done...

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: Big cat gets a big bird, all to himself ...
  • NEWSLINK: Could paintings produced by cats be the ...
  • NEWSLINK: Fate of cougars following fatal attack u...
  • NEWSLINK: Through Golden Eyes: Tiger trainer airli...
  • NEW AND REDISCOVERED: New Wildcat Discovered in Br...
  • NEWSLINK: Animals at Big Cat rescue in Citrus Park...
  • NEWSLINK: Endangered big cats swap homes
  • USA SIGHTINGS: Spoon River Sportsman: Big cat s...
  • NEWSLINK: 1000 leopard claws seized in India
  • NEWSLINK: Cheetah study gets lions off the hook
  • NEWSLINK: Indian tiger conservation plan approved

  • NEWSLINK: Understanding America's Big Cat: An Intr...

  • CRYPTOLINK: Minnesota Bigfoot Hoax?

    A 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. 

    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: Oklahoma octopus, Scientists Sign Declaration That Animals Have Conscious Awareness; Just Like Humans, Frontiers of Anthropology, Cedar and Willow, Benny's Blogs

    New at the Frontiers of Zoology:

    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN AWAITS THE COMING OF THE BARBARIANS

    The Gonzo Daily - Thursday
     
    Today is one of those irritating days when things just don't go as well as one would have liked them to have done. I have disgruntled clients, deadlines to meet, and two large kittens (who are almost not kittens any more although they still behave like them) just about to go for their inoculations. They will enjoy the next trip (neutering) even less, but it is the only ethical thing to do when you share your house with a voracious carnivore who has a propensity for breeding indiscriminately. I don't like winter at the best of times and if I could follow my inclination to put my head under the pillow and hibernate until March then I most probably would, but sadly life doesn't work out like that.
     
    Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_5.html
     
     
    Chris Hillman: Byrds co-founder teams with Herb Pedersen for timeless country-rock sound
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/chris-hillman-byrds-co-founder-teams.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?

    OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today


    On this day in 1945 flight 19 (5 US bomber planes and a flying boat) disappeared over the seas of the Bermuda Triangle.

    And now the news: