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, February 13, 2014

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES



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

Well, everything actually!

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. 

  • VIDEO: tiger plea-video report
  • VIDEO: leopard marking its surroundings -video rep...

  • VIDEO: camera trap footage -rare cat-video report
  • THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN SINGS AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN (AND AGAIN)

    The Gonzo Daily - Thursday
     
    I finally finished the editing on my Jefferson Starship mini-documentary at about 3:00 this morning. I am trying to export it now, but my computer and the relevant software are being spectacularly recalcitrant. Never mind; these things are sent to try us, and I expect it will all come out OK in the end. (A notable mixture of meaningless cliches there). Hopefully I will be editing some Auburn video later today, and - at bloody last - having a go at the Deviants video over the weekend. I wish everything didn't take five times as long as it should do!
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    You will, I hope, be pleased to hear that Issue 64 of the Gonzo Weekly is OUT. This issue features Liz Lenten's scrapbook of the tour they did with Jefferson Starship, an exclusive interview with Bridget Wishart about Spirits Burning, Hawkwind and all sorts of other things, new music from Steve Ignorant's Slice of Life, new music from Mike Davis and Lizzy Rowe, the new Small Faces compilation album, the Small School in Hartland, the legendary Roy Weard on why we make music, Clepsydra tour dates and more news, reviews, views, interviews and brindled gnus (OK, no specialised African antelopes but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's COMPLETELY FREE!!!
     
     
    To make sure that you don't miss your copy of future issues make an old hippy a happy chappy and subscribe
    http://eepurl.com/r-VTD

    PS: If you are already a subscriber but think that you haven't been receiving your copies please check your spam filters. For some reason known only to the Gods of the internet, some e-mail programmes automatically count the magazine as 'spam' probably because it comes from a mass mailer. Either that or they are just jealous of our peerless content
     
    PPS: I am already working on Issue 65, which will feature an EXCLUSIVE Pink Fairies interview, an exclusive interview with prog album artist Sandor Kwiatkowski,the return of the mighty Six Foot Three, and lotsa other good stuff which I've not done yet..
     
    *  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?

    CRYPTOLINK: Texas Parks and Wildlife: Bigfoot Hunting is Legal

    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. 


    Rick Dyer created a stir when he claimed to have shot Bigfoot on the northwest side of San Antonio, Texas, in 2012.

    While doubts remain on whether it is the real thing or a modern day Cardiff Giant, one of the many questions about his dubious claim has been answered unequivocally: Is shooting Bigfoot even legal?
    “We don't acknowledge that [Bigfoot] exists. But if you wanted to shoot and kill a Bigfoot in the state of Texas, you would just need a hunting license,” said Major Larry Young, game warden with Texas Parks and Wildlife. 
    Dyer says he has DNA and body scans to prove that Bigfoot is real. He has also released pictures of the creature and plans on taking it on tour this winter, charging a fee to see it.

    Read on...

    CRYPTOLINK: Bigfoot reported in Potter Co.

    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. 


    Posted: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 1:49 pm | Updated: 2:00 pm, Wed Jan 29, 2014.

    Although they don’t have substantiated evidence, some local “Squatch hunters” say they have had numerous encounters with the elusive creature in Potter County and the surrounding areas. They say Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch, Yeti, Rugaru, Windigo, Abominable Snowman, Migyur, and many other names, each specific to one of the many locales around the globe where the giant beast has been reported) definitely makes its home in our area, probably because of the abundance of remote habitat and favorable terrain found here.

    Sandy Cramer and Justin Prouty, two of the most dedicated hunters, say they started the local research project kind of on a whim. 
    “One night, Justin and his wife were at my house and we were kind of bored,” said Cramer, a semi-retired nurse. “Justin said, ‘Let’s go Bigfoot hunting.’ I thought he was kidding, but we went that night and had a lot of fun. We kept going and when we started having some encounters, we got to thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is real.’”
    That was in the summer of 2011 and they’ve since gotten hooked on Squatch hunting, although Cramer points out that “hunting” isn’t really the right word. “What we’re doing is looking for evidence and researching. We’re trying to learn as much as we can about a creature that is not very well-known.”
    The closest encounter they’ve had is with a Bigfoot they’ve named ‘Pops.’ They describe him as light gray and report seeing him several times. They suspect he is also the creature who has been enjoying the peanut butter they leave out in an area he seems to frequent. Once, when Cramer and Prouty walked along the edge of a field, two other Squatch hunters watching from a nearby barn saw a large, gray creature step out of the woods and follow them a short distance back. 

    Read on...

    CRYPTOLINK: Meet the Native Bigfoot Hunters From '10 Million Bigfoot Bounty'

    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. 


    Currently SpikeTV has been airing episodes of its new series 10 Million Bigfoot Bounty in which nine elite teams of searchers look for definitive proof of the existence of Bigfoot.
    In a conversation with ICTMN, brothers Dan and Dave Greene (Mohawk, Tuscarora, Chippewa), who are billed as the Native American team on the show and sometimes called the "Green Giants," talked about their prior experiences as Bigfoot-hunters.
    Has either of you actually ever seen Bigfoot?
    Dan Greene, Carson City, NV: I have seen Bigfoot on two occasions. I was in the woods of northern Michigan the first time, sledding with my sister Emily. We turned around and saw something sitting by a tree -- we thought it was a bear, then it stood up on two legs and walked and looked at us. Then It walked into the woods. It was a real spooky feeling that made the hair on your neck stand up.
    The second time we were on the reservation in Michigan at night and we built a wigwam that we were going to sleep in. It was a moonlit night which lit up the pond and we heard a sound that we thought was chopping. We looked across the pond we saw something tall and dark, it was big and had a branch and was hitting the tree. We were kids, and thought it was a killer chopping up somebody. It wasn't a person because it was dark and shaggy and he was hitting a tree with a branch. This was in 1985. This was before the theory of three came about.

    Read on...

    OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

    http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

    On this day in 1974 Robbie Williams was born. Williams has had three UFO sightings and starred in a radio documentary with Jon Ronson about the subject of UFOs and aliens.
    And now the news:

  • Urban bees using plastic to build hives
  • Elephant calves orphaned by wildlife poaching
  • Armadillos: Brazil plan to save World Cup mascot
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  • Illegal hunting on the rise in Afghanistan

  • It Took 60,000 Years to Kill Nearly Everything on ...

  • Williams also sings songs. Here is one that isn't half bad:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDoDis9AV10