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...




Saturday, November 03, 2012

TODAY'S 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 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.



SIGHTINGS USA: Missouri Mountain Lion

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From Nick Redfern's World of Whatever:
From CFZ Australia:

I'M YER GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN

And so we reach the weekend. Richard and I treated our colds in the traditional way and are both considerably better. Today is going to be a hive of activity as (to use Richie West's expression) we play catch up, and try and get ahead of the game once more. The initial sales of the Journal of cryptozoology are good. If you want to check it out go to www.journalofcryptozoology.com. Neil Young's two new albums have relaunched my enthusiasm for his music and I am now working backwards, and am rediscovering 'Greendale'...

Here is Michael Des Barres with a slightly startled look on his face, hanging on to the leg of an exceptionally beautiful young woman. The lady in question is apparently called AJ Celi, and she is wearing "her lollypop dress". However, I have absolutely no idea what they are doing, where they are doing it, or why. Can someone please enlighten me? http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/i-have-absolutely-no-idea-what-this-is.html

This interview with John Payne is a couple of years old but well worth reading

As regular readers will be aware, I spend a lot of my time looking for the stranger and most out there stories about Gonzofolk. But this takes the biscuit; a recipe for carrot cake inspired by Captain Beefheart:

Our daily visit to the multitalented Thom the World Poet

Today I have the new limited edition CD thingy Voxpop Puella from the ever wonderful Helen McCookerybook. I also have a book about alien abductions in the United States. I wonder whether you can guess which one I am looking forward to most.

A great Jefferson Starship review
 
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 Editor is an old hippy of 53 who - together with his orange cat - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange cat?

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today



On this day in 1998 Bob Kane, the co-creator of Batman, died.

  • RSPB reacts to Government ban on importing ash tre...
  • Dog Survives Ride From Massachusetts To Rhode Isla...
  • Sandy May Drive Subway Rats onto NYC Streets
  • New Cat Breed, Selkirk Rex, Genetically Different ...
  • 9 unusual new species of Tarantula discovered in B...
  • WWF uncovers massive unreported trade of Atlantic ...
  • Experts' joy at birth of first Farne Island twin s...
  • Tiger cubs rescued in Thai smuggling plot

  • And this is what finished Bob Kane off:

    Friday, November 02, 2012

    VOLUME ONE OF THE JOURNAL OF CRYPTOZOOLOGY WILL SOON BE AVAILABLE


    The CFZ Publishing Group is delighted to announce that Volume One of The Journal of Cryptozoology is now available for pre-order. It is being uploaded today and - unless something goes horribly wrong, the first copies will be shipped out next week.


    Editorial
    Karl P.N. Shuker
    A Digital Search Assistant for Cryptozoological Field Expeditions
    Andrew May
    The Queensland Tiger: Further Evidence on the 1871 Footprint
    Malcolm Smith
    The Second 'Scapasaurus' (Re)Discovered
    Markus Hemmler
    Identifying 'Jaws', the Margaret River Mammal Carcase
    Darren Naish
    Instructions to Contributors:
    (i) Important Issues to Consider When Preparing a Cryptozoological Paper
    (ii) The Style of Presentation Required for Submissions to the Journal

    Buy Volume One now with Paypal
     

    We have chosen the king cheetah as the emblem of the Journal of Cryptozoology as it is the perfect example of what cryptozoology should be concerned with. It is a particularly uncommon mutation of the cheetah which was first noted in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1926, and was initially thought to be a separate species Acinonyx rex. Its status as a species was conclusively disproved nearly 60 years later when king cheetah cubs were born in captivity to parents with normal markings. Cryptozoology in its purest form is about the search for the truth concerning what Bernard Heuvelmans described in 1980 as ‘unexpected animals’. The truth may not be as exciting, or even as newsworthy, as many pundits would like, but it is still the truth. And in the end, that is all that matters.

    The Journal of Cryptozoology is published and funded by CFZ Press, which is owned by the Centre for Fortean Zoology. However, it is an entity completely separate from the CFZ and entirely independent of it. We have long been aware of the need for a peer-reviewed academic journal covering cryptozoology, and we feel that it is important that it is truly international in scope and independent of any pre-existing organisation or pressure group.

    We think that this is a very exciting new venture, and are immensely proud to be involved as its publishers. We are sad to see that other publishing ventures have folded for lack of funding, and so CFZ Publishing Group will guarantee to maintain funding of this project for at least the first ten volumes, regardless of sales, subscriber figures, or other outside factors.



    KARL SHUKER: THE JOURNAL OF CRYPTOZOOLOGY IS NOW IN PRINT!



    Less than nine months after officially announcing on ShukerNature its founding (click here for details), I am delighted to announce that the inaugural volume of the Journal of Cryptozoology – currently the world's only peer-reviewed, scientific journal devoted to mystery animals – is now in print. Click here to visit its official website for full details of its contents and how to subscribe to this historic periodical, for which I am the editor and CFZ Press is the publisher.

    Read on...

    SHERI'S BLOG: Day 7 - Thursday


    We have a visitor this week. Sheri Myler, a student from the North of England is doing a week's placement with us. She is already very keen on cryptozoology and eager to learn. I confidently predict that she will be an asset to the cryptozoological community in years to come. However, we decided to put her to work, and each day she will be blogging about what she has been doing...


    The last day of my placement has been the shortest but, by no means the least eventful. The first of my tasks was to take part in the animal rounds, which, at first, seemed the usual. It was not until we began feeding those in the conservatory that we realised that there was an emergency situation.

    One of the fish tanks had been completely drained. The cause of this was not immediately obvious as there were no cracks visible in the glass. The caecilians are amphibious and, so, were in no real danger. The fish, however, were all presumed dead.

    On further inspection, it was seen that many of the fish were still moving. A bucket of warm water was fetched and the fish scooped up, largely individually, though as many as possible were moved at a time, to attempt to prevent the time delay causing more deaths. Only a few died before we got there and none seem to have died, from stress, in the transfer.

    After alternate tanks were prepared and the rest of the animal rounds completed, I first set to work on my blog, before heading off to retrieve the trail cameras that were set out on my first day. It did not take very long at long and we were back at the centre, checking the photos fairly swiftly.

    One of the memory cards was missing, which was a disappointment. The current theory is that someone was doing something they shouldn’t be and, on realising that they’d been caught on camera, took the card with them. The rest of today was spent editing Karl Shuker’s big cat book, before my last day came to a close with the writing of this blog.