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...




Friday, June 15, 2018

BIG CAT ROUND UP

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.

  • NEWSLINK: Two Sumatran tigers to make new home at ...
  • CARL WRITES
  • PHOTO: Blue Mountains 'panther' caught on camera -...

  • PHOTOS: Rare one-month-old tiger cubs as they are ...
  • GOODNESS ME IT IS THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN

    The Gonzo Daily: Friday/Saturday
     
    A much publicised survey by Deezer claims that people stop discovering new music at just 30 and a half.
    “The peak age for discovering new music, the results suggested, was 24. This is when 75% of respondents said they listened to 10 or more new tracks a week, and 64% said they sought out five new artists per month. After this, though, it seems people's ability to keep up with music trends peters off.”.
     
    Well I will admit that I don’t discover as much new music as I used to, but I have discovered all sorts of new things in the past few years; hiphop for example. This was a genre I really didn’t get when I was younger. And from what I gather from my fellow Gonzo Weekly writers, we are all getting into new stuff still, and most of us are somewhere over our mid fifties.
     
    So, does this mean that Deezer have got it wrong? Does this mean that me and the Gonzo posse are totally out there freakazoids? Or does this mean that most older people don’t subscribe to Deezer?
     
    I would suggest that it is a mixture of all three, but I have to say that when I tried using Deezer I couldn’t understand it at all and went back to using Spotify as God intended.
     
    Like most things in life, there are no cear answers and things usually turn out to be chicken and the egg situations anyway.
     
    Watch this space.
     
    And for those of you who are interested in such things, the Gonzo Privacy Policy is here:
     
     
    And the CFZ Privacy Policy is here:
     
     
    But for now, here is the news:
     
    THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Osibisa - The Warrior ...
    NIC POTTER Interview (youtube edit)
    I Watched the World…30 Years After Brautigan
    VOTE FOR BRUFORD IN THE PROG AWARDS
    THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
     
     
    Gonzo Weekly #290
    THE OVERNITE SENSATION ISSUE
     
    We continue to trawl the counterculture with this particularly groovy issue, in which Jon talks to Frank Zappa’s younger sister about her book, her brother and other things, Jeremy goes to see Wreckless Eric, Doug goes to see Echo and the Bunnymen, Alan goes to see Woody Pines, Graham riffs on Hawkwind, Jon writes about Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets, and there is loadsa other stuff as well ….
     
    #Hail Eris!
     
    And there are radio shows from Strange Fruit, AND Mack Maloney, AND Friday Night Progressive, there are columns from all sorts of folk including Neil Nixon, and Roy Weard, and C J Stone, and Mr Biffo and Kev Rowlands AND the irrepressible Corinna . There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and tiger quolls who are havinga little snooze (OK, nothing to do with small dasyurids who are a little sleepy, 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:
     
    Pink Floyd, Nick Mason, Ringo Starr, Jon Anderson, Damon Albarn, Prince, Yes, Morrissey, Strange Fruit, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin, Marc Ogeret, Robert Maksymilian Brylewski (also known as. Afa and Robin Goldroker), Edward Harrington (aka Eddy Clearwater), Razan Ashraf Abdul Qadir al-Najjar, Sinan Sakic, Demba Nabé, Ralph Santolla, Brian Browne, Eliza Carthy, Kate Rusby, Rick Wakeman, Paice, Ashton & Lord, The Mitchell Trio, Patrice Zappa, Frank Zappa, Doug Harr, Echo and the Bunnymen, Alan Dearling, Woody Pines, Jeremy Smith, Wreckless Eric, Kev Rowland, Sex Dumpster, Soniq Theater, Soul Doubt, Umphrey's Mcgee, Usurpress, Voidhanger, Alghazanth, Animal Drive, Besvarjelsen, Chris Stone, Hawkwind, The Wild Colonial Boy, Martin Springett, The Durrells, Nick van der Leek
     
    And the last few issues are:
     
    Issue 289 (Misty in Roots)
    Issue 288 (Paula Frazer)
    Issue 287 (Boss Goodman)
    Issue 286 (Monty Python)
    Issue 285 (ELP)
    Issue 284 (Straqngelove)
    Issue 283 (Record Store Day)
    Issue 282 (Neil Finn and Fleetwood Mac)
    Issue 281 (Carl Palmer)
    Issue 280 (Steve Andrews)
     
     
    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 58 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?

    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.



    NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Friday/Saturday

    ON THIS DAY IN -  1381 - The English peasant revolt was crushed in London. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Wasps drum to alert one another of food nearby
  • Climate-threatened animals unable to relocate
  • Limiting warming to 1.5 degree C would save majori...
  • After 60 years, Isle Royale continues world's long...



  • 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)