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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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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Badger cull: Attenborough condemns UK government for 'ignoring' science

David Attenborough
Sir David Attenborough: 'Why do they spend a lot of time and money doing careful scientific studies and then simply ignore the results?' Photograph: Martin Godwin
Sir David Attenborough has condemned the UK government for "ignoring" scientific evidence after the controversial badger cull in Gloucestershire was more than doubled in length on Wednesday.
The night-time shoots had killed less than half the minimum numbers required in the initial six weeks, prompting experts to warn than the failure risked increasing tuberculosis in cattle, rather than curbing it.
"Why do they spend a lot of time and money doing careful scientific studies and then simply ignore the results?" asked Sir David, the UK's best known naturalist. He told the Guardian: "They decided to have a six-week [cull] and when they don't get the result they want, they want to extend by eight weeks. It is simply not believing in the science."
The granting of the extension by Natural England (NE) will be a relief to the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, and the National Farmers Union (NFU), who argue that culling badgers is an essential part of curbing the rise in bovine TB, which led to 28,000 cattle being slaughtered in 2012 at a cost to taxpayers of £100m.
But Paterson now faces the prospect of a high court legal challenge from the Badger Trust and the disapproval of the nation's largest private landowner, the National Trust. Dame Helen Ghosh, the trust's director general and until 2010 permanent secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), had questioned the "scientific rigour and credibility" of the pilot culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset.

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