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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Friday, January 17, 2014

CRYPTOLINK: New laws needed to save Bigfoot's life?

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. 


Two men who claim to have shot and killed Bigfoot. Rick Dyer (bottom right) on camera supposedly shooting the one seen at left in San Antonio in September 2012. Justin Smeja, who shot two in California in 2010, telling his story on Spike TV´s "$10 Million Bigfoot Bounty,"
Two men who claim to have shot and killed Bigfoot. Rick Dyer (bottom right) on camera supposedly shooting the one seen at left in San Antonio in September 2012. Justin Smeja, who shot two in California in 2010, telling his story on Spike TV's "$10 Million Bigfoot Bounty,"



Should killing Bigfoot be a crime?

Although it is in a couple of Washington counties, that's not the case in Texas, where an 8-foot shaggy beast was supposedly bagged in some San Antonio woods by Sasquatch hunter Rick Dyer.

“You don’t need a hunting license to kill something that doesn’t exist,” said Mike Cox, a spokesman for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

San Antonio police declined to comment.


Dyer, though, has commented plenty, after a recent release of photos snared attention across the media. He said he nailed Walmart pork ribs to a tree to lure a couple of Sasquatch, one of which he shot and killed in September 2012. He promises that scientific proof, including DNA results and autopsy video, will finally be unveiled on Feb. 9, at a news conference with a Washington university.


Then the plan is to take the taxidermied body on a national tour.


I am not giving you a piece of bear meat,” he says on a YouTube video posted on his Facebook page. ",,, I’m giving you a real, dead Sasquatch. ... I have the body, and I will show you.”
Read on...

CRYPTOLINK: Did Cavities Kill Earth's Largest Ape?

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. 


Besides “anywhere he wants,” where does a 1,200-ape sit down for diner? The extinct 10-foot tall Gigantopithecus probably found a seat near the bamboo salad bars of Southeast Asia’s forests from approximately 9 million to 300,000 years ago.
However, that bamboo buffet may have disappeared as the Tibetan Plateau rose and ushered in a cooler climate. Without bamboo, the apes may have turned to sugary fruits that rotted their teeth, reported New Scientist.
Near the end of apes’ time on Earth, the animals’ now-fossilized teeth bore deep erosion and potential signs of decay. This may mean they ate increased amounts of acidic, sugary fruit as the bamboo dwindled, the lead author of recent study in Quaternary International, Yingqi Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told New Scientist.
Zhang based his dental diagnosis of  Gigantopithecus’ demise on 17 teeth recently excavated from Hejiang Cave in China. The teeth were found along with fossils from rhinos, pandas, tapirs, hyenas, colobine monkeys, tigers and other animals.

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

What has Corinna's column of fortean bird news got to do with Cryptozoology?

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. 









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 that 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. 

  • CRYPTOZOOLOGY: Ghost of the Guadalupe Mountains - ...
  • NEWSLINK -Lions 'facing extinction in West Afric...
  • VIDEO: Documentary Large Cat Sightings & Witness...
  • VIDEO: Q: Do TIGERS like catnip??
  • VIDEO: NIGHT TIME BIG CAT SIGHTING!!! NEW FOOTAGE!...
  • VIDEO: Lion & Tiger PLAYTIME! video

  • NEWSLINK: Tiger versus chicken: Amazing pictures s...

  • ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

    News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

    From Nick Redfern's World of Whatever:
    From CFZ-USA:

    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS IN FINE FETTLE

    The Gonzo Daily - Friday
    An ex-girlfriend of mine always said that you could tell what sort of mood I was in by the sort of music I was listening to. Today I am listening to 'Sexual Harassment in the Workplace' from Frank Zappa's Guitar album (1988). What that says about my mental health I have no idea, but it was a full moon yesterday!
    Yesterday evening was full of drama! Lilith Tinkerbell, the little black kitten who only took her first faltering steps outside last week, escaped. Sometime in the mid afternoon she got out, and we couldn't find her anywhere. As anyone who has ever visited my house will know, there is stuff everywhere - tanks of exotic fish and other creatures, guitars, books, CDs, zoological specimens, and general tat that we have picked up on our travels - so there are plenty of places for a little pussy cat to hide. So we weren't that worried...at first. But as the evening progressed we got more and more worried, and by the time we went to bed, Corinna and I were verging on distraught. Then, just after we had switched the bedroom light out, we heard a plaintive squeaking noise from outside, and Corinna rushed downstairs only to return a few minutes later with a little black kitten who was looking rather pleased with herself, and none the worse for her adventure.
    Today I shall be putting this weekend's issue of the Gonzo Weekly together, and talking to legendary drumdude Twink. Shosh and Gavin are going back to the Midlands, and normal service will hopefully be resumed. Slainte...

    Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/01/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_17.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

    http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

    On this day in 1931 the actor James Earl Jones was born. Jones is best known for providing the voice for Darth Vader in the Star Wars films, also voicing Mufassa in The Lion King and for playing the king in Coming to America.

    And now the news:

  • Tell Texas: Stop Gassing Animals - via Herp Digest...
  • Genes and Calls Reveal Five-Fold Greater Diversity...
  • Scientists Warn: Conservation Work in Zoos Is Too ...
  • Silicone implants could play a part in saving one ...
  • Giant US trade deal might weaken shark fin ban
  • Alligators Stalk, Crush & Swallow Prey on Candid C...
  • How Queen Bees Reign Over Reproduction

  • Rare natural hybridisation results in a dolphin wi...

  • This would have been a much cooler way to announce the birth of Prince George than some crummy easel in a glorified car-park last year, they have a balcony in front of Buckingham Palace, why not use it:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zLx_JtcQVI