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, April 03, 2017

CFZ NEWSLETTER #18

Dear Friends,


For those of you not in the know, at the beginning of each month we send out a newsletter to all members of the CFZ. The most recent (which went out a few minutes ago) included articles on a chupacabra which isn't, a mystery bird, a giant (and we mean giant) spider, and an alleged cyclops carcass, an alternative way of looking at Bigfoot, and a lost tiger, the return of OTT, Expedition Profiles for 2017, Notes and Queries etc.

The infrastructure of the Centre for Fortean Zoology has changed rapidly over the last few years and truthfully doesn’t look like its going to stop changing anytime soon. The newsletter costs a quid a month (or the equivalent in your currency) and is delivered straight into your inbox by a plethora of tiny invisible elves, or email if your prefer it that way. You can sign up for it here: http://tinyurl.com/jtsq7ew



If you want to view a sample issue click here: http://tinyurl.com/pw7rw9l

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Thylacine news


But is this Australian marsupial, which is also known as the thylacine, really emerging in the wild for the first time in about a century? If it is, that will put ...

Bill's dad and a mate fashioned a thylacine shape out of cardboard, painted it up with the stripes roughly in the right places and armed with a box ...
James Cook University scientists Professor Bill Laurance and Dr Sandra Abell will use more than 50 camera traps to survey sites where thylacines are ...
The last thylacine is thought to have died in Hobart zoo in 1936, and it is widely believed to have become extinct on mainland Australia at least 2,000 ...

Australia's thylacine has been considered extinct for over 80 years, but alleged sightings, snapshots and even blurry footage have attracted so much ...
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NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)

-


A New Zealand scientist is to DNA test the waters of Loch Ness in another bid to determine once and for all if Nessie exists. Professor Neil Gemmell ...

Scientists to test water of Loch Ness for DNA to find out once and for all if Nessie is real
Boffin from New Zealand has set out to discover if the myth of the Loch Ness Monster is true[/caption]. Prof Gemmell, from The University of Otago in ...
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Gonzo Weekly #228

Gonzo Magazine #228
THE TRAVEL BROADENS THE WASSNAME ISSUE
Graham travels to Phoenix, Arizona to meet the Space Pharoahs, a Hawkwind tribute band in a most unlikely location. And they even get raided by the cops! Meanwhile Alan is getting all arty in Vilnius, Lithuania, John goes to see Cary Grace and Mauve la Biche in darkest Somerset, Richard Freeman writes about Tura Satana, Richard Foreman about Neil Young's Jeans, Doug writes about Fleetwood Mac, Jon rants on about Krautrock, and The Man’s Daddy has a whole page of Brexit Jokes.
Groovy huh?
It’s all free!
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Friday Night Progressive, and Strange Fruit. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons outside zoos (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have escaped from captivity, 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!!!
This issue features:
Krautock, Gorillaz, RPO, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Clem Curtis, Arthur Murray Blythe, James Dent "Jimmy" Dotson, Peter Shotton, Edward Grimes, Tony Ashton with Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Bernie Marsden, Micky Moody, Neil Murray, John Entwhistle, Zak Starkey (Ringo’s son), Z, Gastank, Lutz Ulbrich featuring Nico, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, Atomic Rooster, Mary Hopkin, Space Pharoahs, Fleetwood Mac, Alan Dearling, Vilnius, Lithuania, John Brodie-Good, The Cary Grace Band, Mauve La Biche, Neil Young, Kev Rowland, Wingfield Reuter Stavi Sirkus, Argos, Cairo, Mr Biffo, Hawkwind, Xtul, Martin Springett, Philip Wayre
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
Issue 227 (Chuck Berry)
Issue 225-6 (The Rites of Spring)
Issue 224 (Hibernal)
Issue 223 (Beatles)
Issue 222 (Cruise to the Edge)
Issue 221 (Deke Leonard)
Issue 220 (Larry Wallis)
Issue 219 (Martin Stone)
Issue 218 (Mark Reiser tribute)
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:
SPECIAL NOTICE: If you, too, want to unleash the power of your inner rock journalist, and want to join a rapidly growing band of likewise minded weirdos please email me at jon@eclipse.co.uk The more the merrier really.
* 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.co.uk
* 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 57 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two half grown kittens, one totally coincidentally named after one of the Manson Family, purely because she squeaks, puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. 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 Archie and the Cats?
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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.
  • PHOTOS: Big Cat Rescue welcomes 2 bobcats from fai...
  • NEWSLINK: Water sprinklers and frozen food for Mah...


  • NEWSLINK: Finding a new home: Tigers from highly-c...
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    CFZ PEOPLE: Mary Downes (1922-2002)

    My Mother would have been 95 tomorrow


    The Mother by Robert William Service
    There will be a singing in your heart,
    There will be a rapture in your eyes;
    You will be a woman set apart,
    You will be so wonderful and wise.
    You will sleep, and when from dreams you start,
    As of one that wakes in Paradise,
    There will be a singing in your heart,
    There will be a rapture in your eyes.

    There will be a moaning in your heart,
    There will be an anguish in your eyes;
    You will see your dearest ones depart,
    You will hear their quivering good-byes.
    Yours will be the heart-ache and the smart,
    Tears that scald and lonely sacrifice;
    There will be a moaning in your heart,
    There will be an anguish in your eyes.

    There will come a glory in your eyes,
    There will come a peace within your heart;
    Sitting 'neath the quiet evening skies,
    Time will dry the tear and dull the smart.
    You will know that you have played your part;
    Yours shall be the love that never dies:
    You, with Heaven's peace within your heart,
    You, with God's own glory in your eyes.
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    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN SITS AND SINGS A SONG WITH MOTHER


    The Gonzo Daily: Monday/Tuesday
    Beach Boys/Thom/ARW/Rick Wakeman/Fairport Convention
    And so, boys and girls, it is the beginning of another week. And am I feeling full of vim and vigour? Ummmmm. What's do you think? Things are actually going quite well at the moment but, as always seems to be the way, it is 2 steps forward and 1 step back.
    Roy Harper once wrote a song which went something like "why do I always sit next to the looney in the bus?" And this is a question that's had puzzled me for bleeding years. I seem to attract more than my fair share of nutters, and their really are times that I wish that I didn't. However, enough of my bellyaching, and on with today's news
    And now, here is the news:
    THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: The Beach Boys - I Get...
    THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
    ARW News
    RICK WAKEMAN – Phantom Of The Opera
    FAIRPORT CONVENTION NEWS
    Gonzo Magazine #228
    THE TRAVEL BROADENS THE WASSNAME ISSUE
    Graham travels to Phoenix, Arizona to meet the Space Pharoahs, a Hawkwind tribute band in a most unlikely location. And they even get raided by the cops! Meanwhile Alan is getting all arty in Vilnius, Lithuania, John goes to see Cary Grace and Mauve la Biche in darkest Somerset, Richard Freeman writes about Tura Satana, Richard Foreman about Neil Young's Jeans, Doug writes about Fleetwood Mac, Jon rants on about Krautrock, and The Man’s Daddy has a whole page of Brexit Jokes.
    Groovy huh?
    It’s all free!
    And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Friday Night Progressive, and Strange Fruit. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons outside zoos (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have escaped from captivity, 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!!!
    This issue features:
    Krautock, Gorillaz, RPO, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Clem Curtis, Arthur Murray Blythe, James Dent "Jimmy" Dotson, Peter Shotton, Edward Grimes, Tony Ashton with Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Bernie Marsden, Micky Moody, Neil Murray, John Entwhistle, Zak Starkey (Ringo’s son), Z, Gastank, Lutz Ulbrich featuring Nico, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, Atomic Rooster, Mary Hopkin, Space Pharoahs, Fleetwood Mac, Alan Dearling, Vilnius, Lithuania, John Brodie-Good, The Cary Grace Band, Mauve La Biche, Neil Young, Kev Rowland, Wingfield Reuter Stavi Sirkus, Argos, Cairo, Mr Biffo, Hawkwind, Xtul, Martin Springett, Philip Wayre
    Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
    Issue 227 (Chuck Berry)
    Issue 225-6 (The Rites of Spring)
    Issue 224 (Hibernal)
    Issue 223 (Beatles)
    Issue 222 (Cruise to the Edge)
    Issue 221 (Deke Leonard)
    Issue 220 (Larry Wallis)
    Issue 219 (Martin Stone)
    Issue 218 (Mark Reiser tribute)
    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:
    SPECIAL NOTICE: If you, too, want to unleash the power of your inner rock journalist, and want to join a rapidly growing band of likewise minded weirdos please email me at jon@eclipse.co.uk The more the merrier really.
    * 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.co.uk
    * 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 57 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two half grown kittens, one totally coincidentally named after one of the Manson Family, purely because she squeaks, puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. 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 Archie and the Cats?
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    BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



    Is Bigfoot an Alien? The UFO Connection via Stan Gordon (Video)
    Since 1965, Stan Gordon has been conducting on scene investigations of mysterious encounters in Pennsylvania. He has been involved with the ...

    While this may sound a lot like the mythical Bigfoot, Moan said she does not want to jump to conclusions. She said hikers and TNI workers have ...
    Bigfoot Whistles and Vocals Captured On the Parabolic
    The Trail to Bigfoot team shares some crazy audio of what they believe to be bigfoot whistling and vocalizing. Check it out: ...
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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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    NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Monday/Tuesday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1866 - Rudolph Eickemeyer and G. Osterheld patented a blocking and shaping machine for hats. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk
  • This timid little fish escapes predators by inject...
  • Good news for elephants: China's legal ivory trade...
  • Spread of ages is key to impact of disease, animal...
  • Giant salamanders, geckos and olms: Vanishing spec...
  • Predatory lizard enters Brazil clandestinely-Anoli...
  • Fingerprint technique spots frog populations at ri...
  • Cats found to like humans more than thought


    • 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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