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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Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Wednesday, July 23, 2014

TODAY'S BIG CAT NEWS

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.

  • UK SIGHTINGS: Big cat caught on video in Folkesto...
  • NEWSLINK: The Very Real War To Save Big Cats
  • NEWSLINK: State: It’s Illegal To Shoot Large Cats...

  • NEWSLINK: SEE IT: Indian villagers rescue leopard 
  • BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



    The search for Bigfoot
    Henry Haynes is raising funds for The search for Bigfoot on Kickstarter! An attempt to get definitive photographic proof of Bigfoot in the Pacific

    Bigfoot Skeptic Says He Will Kill Bigfoot If It Comes On His Land
    The show Finding Bigfoot has become quite the pop-culture sensation here in America. It has spawned many Bigfoot enthusiasts & researchers

    Bigfoot Structures and a Tree Snap
    But one monster stands out above the rest – Bigfoot! There are so many sightings of these hairy giants in the Bluegrass State that it has come

    Dr. Jeff Meldrum Looking For Sasquatch DNA Samples
    Do you have any Sasquatch DNA samples? Well it looks like another Sasquatch DNA project is in the works. Dr. Jeff Meldrum has just made an 

    Looking for a Bigfoot Movie to Watch?
    Bigfoot Evidence Matt K.
    While 2014 is shaping up to be the year of the bigfoot movie, there have been plenty of bigfoot movies that have come out in the past. I'm sure

     

    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.


    NEW STUFF FROM THE IRREPRESSIBLE MARK RAINES

    THE GONZO FROG HOPPITY HOPPITY HOP MAN HOPS

    The Gonzo Daily - Wednesday
    www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/about.html

    What has Jon Downes got in common with a large marine reptile such as a leatherback turtle? The leatherback turtle or luth is the largest known testudine in the world today, and - although it breeds in the tropics, comes often to the North Atlantic, even within the Arctic Circle, as part of its natural life cycle.
     
    Gigantothermy (sometimes called ectothermic homeothermy) is a phenomenon with significance in biology and paleontology, whereby large, bulky ectothermic animals are more easily able to maintain a constant, relatively high body temperature than smaller animals by virtue of their smaller surface area to volume ratio. A bigger animal has proportionately less of its body close to the outside environment than a smaller animal of otherwise similar shape, and so it gains heat from, or loses heat to, the environment much more slowly. I am 6'7" tall and over 24 stone. When the weather is as hot as it is at the moment it takes so long for me to cool down, that I often don't get to sleep until dawn.
     
    That's why the blogs are late at the moment.
     
     
    The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#87) is now available to read or download at www.gonzoweekly.com. It has Daevid Allen on the front cover an an article about the Glissando Orchestra's healing Drones for Daevid which seem to have worked miraculous results. It also includes an exclusive interview with Harry Williamson on the subject. Elsewhere in the issue Doug Harr interviews the founding members of Brand X and Erik Norlander gives us a very generous present.  There are also new shows from the wonderfully eccentric Jaki and Tim on their Submarine, and from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit and a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and toads with booze (OK, no alcoholic anurans, 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 ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
     
    Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
     
     
    All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
     
    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
     

    *  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 an orange kitten named after a song by Frank Zappa 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 kitten?

    John Hadlow's Family SCI-FI DAY





    Our old friend John Hadlow has another one of his family sci-fi days in Mansfield this weekend.  It is the last one that he is doing and I strongly suggest that you should make an effort to go along if you are in that part of the country.  If you do, tell Jon that it was us who sent you.

    May the force be with you.

    NEWS FROM NOWHERE

    ON THIS DAY IN 1980 - 
    Keith Godchaux (Grateful Dead) died of injuries that he sustained in a car accident in Marin County, CA. 

  • Mammoth and mastodon behavior was less roam, more ...
  • Seals forage at offshore wind farms
  • Elephants are sensitive and very social, but there...
  • Sixth-grader proves invasive species of ocean fish...
  • Jellyfish set for record number of sightings
  • Science and art bring back to life 300-million-yea...
  • Satellite tagged green turtles reveal shortcomings...

  • Two bee swarms hit Newtown in one day

  • AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK...
    (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day)