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, June 18, 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' seen swimming across Kent ...
  • NEWSLINK: Bobcat sighted in backyard of Sharon fam...
  • NEWSLINK: A Boy And His Jaguar Speak To Children W...
  • NEWSLINK: Calls for big cat adverts to be taken of...

  • NEWSLINK: Railways to ensure lion's share of safet...
  • BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



    Listen to Phillip Morris Try to Convince People That He Created The Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot
    Bigfoot Evidence Shawn
    About two months after selling Patterson the costume, the famous Gimlin-Patterson Bigfoot film became one of the biggest news stories in 1967.

    So Bigfoot Doesn't Exist Huh?
    Most of this will have been said before, and it will probably be said again and again, but there are a few things that bug me about the “Bigfoot Doesn't ...

    Newer Post
    Bigfoot Evidence Shawn
    Presented by Bigfoot Evidence, this amazing artwork by Dred Funn is his .... (From an interview with Roger Knights and an article in Bigfoot Times, 

    Bigfoot Stalks Single Woman on Texas Ranch
    The creature continued to try to spy on me while sleeping through cracks at sides of blinds at night.

    Hunting bigfoot in Michigan
    Yeti, sasquatch, bigfoot: Sightings of a large, hairy man-like creature have been reported for hundreds of years on the North American continent and

    Hot on the trail of Bigfoot or Sasquatch. (SX50)
    dicklaxt wrote: The jury is still out,,,,,,,but I have a true story encounter to relate. I was deer hunting many years ago in the East Texas Piney Woods.

    Bigfoot Real Evidence from Kentucky
    Sounds like a clear vocalization at the 52-53 sec. mark…..and if you watch the area the whole time, there is definately something moving around 

    Best Footage of Patty I've Seen In a Long Time
    This awesome footage of Patty was captured by a family while driving on the freeway. Watch the amazing vine clips below

    Indiana and Kentucky Bigfoot Researchers
    Indiana Bigfoot Research Organization and the Kentucky Bigfoot Researchers become associated and talk about Big Foot 

    My Bigfoot encounter..
    Hello all. I would like to share my experience regarding my personal sighting. I will try to be as detailed as possible without being boring so bear with

    Bigfoot Sighting: Man Asks For Help From Police
    A Midland County man is asking police for help after spotting Bigfoot. The report comes in from WEYI. Reporter, Josh Marshall, interviewed Anthony 

    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. 



    NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)




    'escape' of the Loch Ness Monster and it's attack on Edinburgh
    Here's a very good documentary on the international struggle for ownership of the Loch Ness Monster following it's discovery in the US owned Loch ...

    Did Katy Perry see the Loch Ness Monster?
    According to Scotland now, KATY PERRY went on the hunt for Nessie the Loch Ness Monster during her recent trip to Scotland. Why is it, that we don't ...

    The Plesiosaur Theory
    LOCH NESS MONSTER Glasgow Boy
    A mini debate of sorts has arisen in a small corner of the Web concerning Plesiosaurs. To wit, is the Loch Ness Monster one of their ilk? A recent article 

    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS INVOLVED

    The Gonzo Daily - Wednesday
     
    So, boys and girls, after a couple of weeks of negotiating, soul searching and generally running about like headless porcupines, we can announce that: YES, there IS going to be a Weird Weekend this year. It will be held, as planned, over the weekend of the 15-17 August this year, but in a new location; The Small School, Hartland. Corinna and I will be hosting the annual cocktail party on the Thursday night in our garden in Woolsery, but the rest of the weekend will be held at the Small School.
     
    We will be publishing updated information and getting in touch with all the speakers and ticketholders over the next few days, but in the meantime:
     
    Read all about the change here:
    http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-weird-weekend-change-of-venue.html
    Check out a list of accommodation in Hartland here:
    http://www.hartlandpeninsula.co.uk/hotels-inns-bed-breakfast
    Check out the latest lineup and programme here:
    http://forteanzoology.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/weird-weekend-2014-programme-for-this.html
    You don't know what the Weird Weekend is? Wash out your mind with soap:
    http://www.weirdweekend.org/
    Buy Tickets online at a special discount price:
    http://www.weirdweekend.org/ticket.htm
     
    For those of you wondering why this is also being sent to the Gonzo list, as well as being a cheap and tawdry attempt at flogging a few tickets, there are three Gonzo artists on the bill)
     
     

    The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#82) is here to read or download at www.gonzoweekly.com. It has the Wally Hope on the front cover and features an interview with Dean Wally, who is the current custodian of his ashes. There is an exclusive review of Yes on the Cruise to the Edge, with previously unpublished pictures. There is news of Mick Abrahams' new album which features guest appearances by a Stone, a Mann, and a Whitesnake, and there are pictures of Genre Peak in the studio. There is an in depth look at a new book about the idiosyncratic 4AD records, and a drunken ramble about Rik Mayall that dictated at 4:00am the other day with the best part of a bottle of bourbon inside of me. There are also new shows from the peculiar multiverse of Sub Reality Sandwich, from Canterbury Sans Frontières, from Friday Night Progressive, and from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit and a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and Gilbert's Potoroos (OK, no specimens f Australia's rarest mammal, 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?

    THE WEIRD WEEKEND: Change of Venue

    Dear Friends,

    There is good and bad news.

    The bad news is that we are no longer holding this year’s Weird Weekend in Woolsery. The good news, is that we have found another venue for this year's event, and hopefully for many years to come: The Small School in Hartland.

    I have had a lot of emails and telephone calls about the decisions by the Woolsery Community Hall Committee which have led to our leaving. A lot of people appear to be quite angry about what has happened. We would like to say, that whilst we don’t agree with their decisions, they were quite within their rights to make them, and we respect that right. We are sad to move the event away from Woolsery, but by doing so we are supporting the Small School in Hartland even more, and this was – after all – the thing which started off all the problems with the Community Centre in the first place.

    From the Small School website:

     “The Small School was founded in 1982 by Satish Kumar and other parents living in an isolated rural community in an economically-deprived area of South West England.   The nearest state secondary school, with almost 2,000 students, was 13 miles away, involving 2 hours travelling a day by bus.  This pioneering group, most of whose children had been educated in small village primary schools, wished to show that secondary education, too, could be modelled on the family, rather than the factory, and based in the local community.

       The school is in the centre of Hartland in the old church hall and at the heart of the community At the rear of the school we have a vegetable garden that is maintained by the students and the food produced is used for the cooked lunches. As a school we aspire to a greener future and we are constantly looking at ways to be more environmentally friendly. As a school we recycle and source all our produce (if it's not already growing in the garden) from the local farm shop in Hartland. By doing this we are not only supporting local businesses but also cutting down on food miles.

      The school serves vegetarian food and other dietary requirements are also catered for. A different parent volunteers to cook the lunch each day and a rota of students help out in the kitchen too. All students attend a Level 2 Food Safety course in order to prepare for the kitchen work. Students also take responsibility for the cleaning of the buildings at the end of the day”.

    The Small School is not as large as the Woolsery Community Centre, but we believe that there is plenty of room for our needs. There will be a bar and a restaurant, and profits from both will go to the School itself. However, because we are sad to be leaving Woolsery, we shall be making our customary donation to Woolsery charities.

    This is a new beginning, and we hope that in future years the event will grow and that we shall be able to involve our friends across North Devon and make this a truly community event which shall carry on for years.

    There will be changes, but as any ecologist will tell you, without change, systems go stagnant, and I would hate that to happen to something to which I have given my heart and soul over the past fifteen years.

    We shall be running a shuttle service for anyone who is booked into a Woolsery B&B who doesn’t have their own transport, and will be uploading a list of accommodation and campsites in Hartland over the next few days…

    Onwards and Upwards

    Jon Downes


    Mark Raines plugs the CFZ Weird Weekend (August 15-18 2014)

    KARL SHUKER: It's Batsquatch, 20 Years On


    Is it a bird? asks Karl Shuker. Or is it a plane? No - it's Batsquatch!!

    Read on...

    OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

    Yesterday’s News Today

    On this day in 2012 Victor Spinetti died. Spinetti was known to millions as the voice of Texas Pete in the critically acclaimed animated serial Superted.
    And now the news:

  • Very hungry Asian caterpillar threatens Britain’s ...
  • Animal trapping records reveal strong wolf effect ...
  • Poor nutrition suggested for humpack strandings
  • Cow on a steep slate roof
  • Great White Shark population in good health along ...
  • Wild yak mothers found to be higher climbers than ...
  • 4 Baby Horses Born from Frozen Embryos
  • Bats make social alliances that affect roosting be...
  • Texas Pete was so badass that not only would he try to shoot down a rocket ship with a revolver, but he would actually succeed in doing so: