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...




Monday, November 18, 2013

TASMANIA EXPEDITION: Another press report

ThylacinusA group of British naturalists belonging to the Centre for Fortean Zoology have begun a photogenic search for the extinct Tasmanian tiger in the region's isolated northwest.  Wikimedia Commons
A species long believed to be extinct may be declared alive thanks to a team of British naturalists set on finding the elusive wildcat.
A group from the Centre for Fortean Zoology has began looking for the Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, in Tasmania's northwest, where clues to the animal's existence have reportedly been found, The Guardian reports.
"[We'll have] a lot of trail cameras, game cameras and we've all got infra-red devices ... just spotlighting, looking for tracks," team member Tony Healy told the Australian Broadcast Corporation.
The last confirmed sighting of a Tasmanian tiger was in 1933, when one was captured and taken to the Hobart Zoo. It died three years later and the species was declared extinct in the 1980s. While there have been numerous sightings since then, none have been confirmed, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
The cat, which looks like a large, long dog with stripes, was usually mute – except while hunting, when it made distinctive yaps. The arrival of European settlers are partially to blame for the Tasmanian tiger’s extinction where bounties were placed on thylacines’ heads, effectively wiping them out.

MIKE DAVIS: He

When Mike and I first played and sung together during the summer of 1982, we would - invariably - end up playing Velvet Underground songs. Now, back in the potato shed, Lou Reed has just died, and we both felt that we should do a little homage to him, to say thank you for the three chords which have got us through our lives.

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: Human speciation, Cedar and Willow, Benny's Blogs

New at the Frontiers of Zoology:

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

The Gonzo Daily - Monday
 
I officially decree today to be a DANES day. No, this is not a tribute to our old friend and colleague Lars Thomas and his two sons from Copenhagen; it is an acronym for Do Absolutely Nothing Extremely Slowly. I have had a long and complex weekend, following on from a long and complex week, and I have every intention of spending the afternoon dozing, possibly with an orange kitten and a book by Robert Heinlein. On a positive note, however, we recorded three more songs with Mike Davis this weekend, and things got a little psychedelic so check them out on the 'Mike Davis Fans' Facebook page. Richard comes up here tomorrow, so we are eagerly awaiting his traveller's tales of derring-do.
 
Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/11/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_18.html
 
 
Roy Wood: The story behind I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/11/roy-wood-story-behind-i-wish-it-could.html
 
MICHAEL DES BARRES: "More musical fun than one band should be legally allowed to have in one blistering hot set".
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/11/michael-des-barres-more-musical-fun.html
 
 
*  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 his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) 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 cat?

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:

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

Yesterday’s News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1946 the Science Fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was born. As well as writing many original novels, including the Humanx Commonwealth and Dinotopia series, Foster is best known as the ghost writer of the novelizations of the Star Wars films and the books of the latest 2 Star Trek films.
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  • The original trailer for Star Wars makes it look as dull as ditchwater:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gvqpFbRKtQ