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...




Monday, January 12, 2015

RAINES EXPLAINS: Life

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CRYPTOLINK: For me, the idea of de-extinction is now as dead as a dodo

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. 
Dodos are best kept in museums these days. net_efekt, CC BY
My wildlife friends and I often talk about what species we would bring back from extinction. I am torn between the dodo and the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. This was once a speculative, sci-fi debate but not anymore. Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned, conservation biologists have muted the idea and the process of de-extinction – bringing back dead species – is coming closer to reality.
De-extinction can be achieved by one of two means: selective breeding or cloning. In the selective breeding method we try to re-create extinct species such as the aurochs (extinct large cattle from Europe and Asia) by looking for their surviving genes among existing cattle and breeding animals to favour these genes. Then you compare the genome of the resulting animals with that for aurochs until you have what is genetically an auroch.
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BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF:



Fisherman Says He Saw Bigfoot Bathing
Fisherman Says He Saw Bigfoot Bathing. This is a good way to introduce myself and say hi. I've kept this news for a while. The photographer words ...

Tim Fasano Hits a Dead End Looking For Skunk Ape Photo Location
Tim Fasano was in the Hillsborough River neighborhood and though we can see the river location where last week's skunk ape photograph was taken ...
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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: ‘Sandy-coloured panthers’ spark 999 ...
  • US SIGHTINGS: Mysterious Big Cat of Jekyll Island...
  • NEWSLINJK: Rare white tiger dies after being bitt...

  • UK SIGHTINGS: Family of six claim they all saw Pu...
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    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.

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    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN FACES THE WEEK

    The Gonzo Daily - Monday 12th January
     
    And so another week begins. Me, Archie the Jack Russell, Lilith the black kitten and Julia the Psychic are sitting in the office. Everyone else is doing their own inimitable thing, whilst I am trying desperately to wake myself up before Tammy the intern arrives. Graham has taken the car into Bideford for its MOT (the results of which I am mildly dreading) and my eldest stepdaughter and her husband are on their way down to spend a week with us. All I want to do is sleep...
     
     
    The Gonzo Weekly #112
    www.gonzoweekly.com
     
    Joe Cocker, Osibisa, Rocket Scientists, Erik Norlander, Beatrles, Robert Plant, Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Yes, Hawkwind, and Daevid Allen fans had better look out!
     
    The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#112) will soon be available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/. It has Rocket Scientists on the front cover, and an interview with the band inside, Jon lookls at the legendary unreleased Beatles music, we send Pete from Sendelica to a desert island, critique the new Robert Plant biography, and there are shows from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the titular submarine dwellers are still lost at sea, whilst Xtul are still causing havoc in the forest. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and manatees looking for booze (OK, nothing to do with alcoholic sirenians, 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:
     
    Issue 111 (Mice on Stilts cover)
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2015/01/gonzo-weekly-111.html
    Issue 109/10 (Yusuf/Stevie Wonder cover)
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/12/gonzo-weekly-10910.html
    Issue 108 (Merrell Fankhauser cover)
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/12/gonzo-weekly-108.html
    Issue 107 (Ant-Bee cover)
     

    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!
     
    You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
    http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/
     

    * 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/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit…
     
    * 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 55 who - together with an infantile orange cat 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 infantile orange cat?
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    NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Monday

    ON THIS DAY IN 49 BC - Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River signaling a war between Rome and Gaul. 

  • Corals under threat from rapidly changing ocean co...
  • There should be no cull of wild boar because of on...
  • The great white shark is in danger – but technolog...
  • Devil is in the detail: Evolution of color in plan...
  • Hong Kong retailer removes ivory from shelves

  • Conservation groups appeals for mittens for koalas...

    • 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)
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