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...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



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, March 22, 2017

ANTI WHALING CAMPAIGN


In a few days, Norway will start a horrific annual tradition of killing hundreds of whales. But if enough raise the alarm now we could get governments across Europe to close their ports to Norwegian ships until they agree to end the bloody slaughter of these emotional, intelligent beings! We did it before with Iceland. Add your name with one click and forward widely:
Add your name 


Dear friends,

In just a few days, Norway will start up a horrific annual tradition -- the ruthless slaughter of hundreds of whales. But we’ve got a strategy to say ‘NO WAY!’

Whales are awe-inspiring, beautiful beings. We now know they communicate with each other in song, and experience human-like emotions. But in Norway, every year these amazing creatures are hunted down and killed, then hacked apart to become animal feed and ingredients in beauty products. It’s unbearable.

Norway has managed to slip under the radar as the #1 whale slaughtering country. But if we now rally unprecedented global outrage, we can push Europe to close its ports to Norway’s whalers. We did it with Iceland -- let’s do it again! Sign the petition below with one click:

Add your name to say NO WAY! to Norway’s whaling

To the Norwegian government, the European Commission and all leaders of countries that allow Norwegian whale shipments to pass through:

As concerned global citizens we appeal to the Norwegian government to end the whale slaughter, and to all others to close your ports to Norwegian whale meat shipments. Your decision will set precedent that could save thousands of whales, and help stop whaling across Europe.

Add your name to say NO WAY! to Norway’s whaling

Our movement and our partners already got Germany and the Netherlands to move to shut their ports to Icelandic whalers, got a major Icelandic whale hunter badboy to shut down his operations, pressured the International Whaling Commission to clamp down on “scientific whaling”, and helped set a path to have 30% of our oceans protected by 2030.

Norway has got away with this mass murder for too long and the government just announced that it’s intending to double its slaughter quotas! But it is only profitable if they can export, and they rely on European ports to ship their bloody whale meat overseas.

Let’s end Norway’s trade of these magical species. When 1 million of us have joined, Avaaz will pull out all the stops to make this a PR nightmare until every port in Europe rejects them and Norway stops whaling once and for all. Add your name now and tell everyone -- let’s turn up the heat to save the whales!

Add your name to say NO WAY! to Norway’s whaling
Momentum is moving towards ending this barbaric slaughter. But it’s the brutal whaling lobby vs. us -- we need to sing for the whales as they cannot defend themselves. Let’s make this so loud we can’t be ignored and help end whaling for good.

With hope,

Rewan, Caroline, Diego, Allison, Emma, Danny, Alice and the entire Avaaz team

MORE INFORMATION

No fin whales to be hunted in Iceland this summer (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/25/no-fin-whales-to-be-hunted-in-iceland-this-summer

How Norway quietly became a whaling powerhouse (CS Monitor)
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2016/0614/How-Norway-quietly-became-a-whaling-powerhouse

90% of Minke Whales Killed in Norway Are Female and 'Almost All' Pregnant (EcoWatch)
http://www.ecowatch.com/minke-whales-killed-pregnant-2312849367.html

Norway’s Whaling Program Just Got Even More Controversial (National Geographic)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160331-norway-minke-whaling-fur-farms/

Frozen in Time - How Modern Norway clings to its whaling past (Ocean Care)
https://oceancare.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Report_Walfang_OC_AWI_PW_Frozen-in-time_EN_2016.pdf

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



Wallowa Mountains Bigfoot Drive
The Rocky Mountain Sasquatch Organization is on the road again, traveling through another bigfoot sighting hotspot area. Will they capture anything ...

Bigfoot video on tracks and trackways in the snow by John Bindernagel
Here is another very interesting and informative bigfoot video from Dr. John Bindernagel on bigfoot tracks and trackways in snow. Dr. Bindernagel.

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN GETS IT TOGETHER

The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
 
Tony Klinger/Anti Whaling/Mike Oldfield/ARW
 
And so another day shuffles through the firmament. Corinna is in Exeter spending a day with eldest daughter Shosh, everyone else is knuckling down to what has to be done, I am putting the new issue of Animals & Men together and not looking forward to an appointment at the surgery this afternoon for doppler tests, which if I remember correctly involve having electric shocks on my legs. That reads horribly Stasi, but is not as bad as it sounds.
 
And now, here is the news:
 
Tony Klinger joins the Advisory Board of Artists U...
ANTI WHALING CAMPAIGN
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Mike Oldfield on Jools...
ANDERSON, RABIN AND WAKEMAN NEWS
 
Gonzo Magazine #225
RITES OF SPRING ISSUE
 
Welcoming in the Rites of Spring with Barbara Dickson, Rick Parfitt of Status Quo, Music of Turkey, the mellifluous keyboard talents of Roger King, Grateful Dead man Phil Lesh, Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock, a look at the Jefferson Family in 2017, the launch of Mr Biffo’s Found Footage, and all sorts of other things. A wilder ride than you can imagine!
 
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:
 
Adam Cohen, Michael Jackson, George Michael, James Mangold, Bruce Springsteen, Yes, Sean Lennon, Black Sabbath, Phil Lesh, Graham Lesh, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Vince, Kalika Prasad Bhattacharya, Lars "Dille" Diedricson, Robbie Hoddinott, Valerie Carter, Fitzroy Edwards, Misha Mengelberg, Thomas Alden "Tommy" Page, Lyle Joseph Ritz, David Joseph Valentin, 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, Roger King, Alan Dearling, Baris Keskin, Duman, Yeni Turku, Baris Manco, Cem Karaca, Erkin Koray, Mogollar, Mercan Dede, Ahmet Ertegun, Nesuhi Ertegun, A Capella Bogaziçi Longa, Verka.Serduchka, Olduramadim, Ali Desidero, Mavi Sakal, John Brodie-Good, Paul Kantner, Richard Foreman, Mickey Hart, Kev Rowland, RC2, Retrospective, Karda Estra, RSC, Shadow Circus, Shplang, The Raz Band, Nick & Peggy Anslinger, Rick Parfitt, Barbara Dickson, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Xtul, Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, Neil Nixon, David Crosby
 
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
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)
Issue 217 (Dig Doug Harr)
Issue 215-6 (New Year 2017)
Issue 213-4 (Yule 2016)
Issue 212 (Greg Lake)
Issue 211 (Phil Collins)
Issue 210 (Nico)
Issue 209 (Pink Fairies)
Issue 208 (Leonard Cohen)
Issue 207 (Tibet)
Issue 206 (Raz)
Issue 205 (Pink Fairies)
Issue 204 (Gas Tank)
Issue 203 (The Gardening Club)
Issue 202 (Gong)
Issue 201 (Auld Man's Baccie)
Issue 200 (Deep Purple)
 
 
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?

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.


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.


THYLACINE NEWS


Mr Hobbs revealed his unlikely encounter with the Tasmanian Tiger, otherwise known as thylacine, while camping in the far north Queensland town ...


Scientists are all but certain thylacines — Tasmanian tigers — were extinct on the Australian mainland by the time European settlers arrived, but as far ...


So perhaps we relate to the thylacine more than other extinct or near-extinct creatures because of its feline and canine characteristics. At the very least ...

NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Wednesday

ON THIS DAY IN - 1457 - Gutenberg Bible became the first printed book. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk


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.)