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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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

CFZ PEOPLE: Matthew Osborne



Happy Birthday my dear fellow

KARL SHUKER - A HITHERTO-UNSEEN PHOTOGRAPH OF RANGER, SCOTLAND'S (NEARLY) BLACK LION



Karl Shuker unveils a previously-unpublished photograph of the nearest thing to a black lion ever confirmed.

TODAY'S BIG CAT NEWS ROUNDUP

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 should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. In September 2012 Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.




  • MATT SALUSBURY WRITES
  • NEWSLINK: Leopard preying on cattle caught
  • UK SIGHTINGS: Big-cat sightings: is Britain suffer...
  • NEWSLINK: Create more reserves to raise big cat nu...
  • USA SIGHTINGS: A Mountain Lion By Any Other Name
  • UK SIGHTINGS: Cumbrian big cat had been spotted be...
  • NEWSLINK: Big cat deaths: Foresters look for cover...
  • UK SIGHTINGS: Cumbrian big cat had been spotted be...
  • NEWSLINK: Pittsburgh Zoo unveils new Amur tiger cu...
  • NEWSLINK: The Truth About Lions- The End Of The Ro...
  • NEWSLINK: Mountain Lion Tranquilized After Getting...
  • NEWSLINK: Nepalese woman killed by leopard
  • NEWSLINK: White tigress dead
  • NEWSLINK: Three darts, seven-hour mob attack kill ...
  • NEWSLINK: Mountain Lion Stuck in Downtown Santa Cr...
  • NEWSLINK: Indian tigers face extinction due to los...
  • NEWSLINK: Grand Canyon wildlife event to honor mem...
  • NEWSLINK: Britain: the joy of camping in the wild
  • NEWSLINK: US aims to ban private big cat ownership...
  • FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

    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. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.



    DALE DRINNON: Plesiosaurs, Loch Ness Monster, Frontiers of Anthropology, Benny's Blogs

    New at the Frontiers of Anthropology:

    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN BURST HIS SPANGO

    And so life continues. The car is playing up at the moment, but the ever resourceful Graham reckons that he knows what is wrong and can probably fix it. I have just finished reading 'Yes the the Answer', an interesting, amusing and sometimes touching anthology of writings about prog rock, and its influence on the lives of the various anthologised authors. Today I have to buckle down and write reviews of this book and of the new 'House of Love' album, which really is excellent.
     
    On crypto news, Lars wrote to me. At Easter he collected hair samples from Huddisford woods, but on analysis they all turned out to be from dogs or native mammals. All, that is except for one. He wrote about the "one piece of broken Black hair, that needed a closer look? Well I have now given it a closer look - I took the opportunity whilst being filmed and interviewed by the French film-crew the other day. Lo and behold it is from a big cat - and it is black!" Golly! That is a turn up for the books.
     
    In the intervening years between the original tests being done back in 2010, and now, large swathes of Huddisford Woords have been cut down, and as big cats are notoriously shy and retiring creatures, both Lars and I thought that there was every possibility that all this industrial-level activity had frightened the creatures away, and that we would be unlikely to get any more evidence from the area.
     
    But seemingly not!
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    *  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:
    http://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 53 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and a not very small orange kitten (who isn't) 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 cats?

    OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today