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, February 17, 2014

Lilith Tinkerbell gives her seal of approval to our wildlife pond

Regular readers may remember that we put in a new pond last year. From the beginning it has always been intended as a wildlife pond and now I am pleased to say that the garden population of Rana temporaria are using it as such. There was a pond here about fifteen years ago but when my brother and his wife had children it was removed for safety reasons. Heartbreakingly, for some years after its removal the frogs would lay their spawn on the ground where the pond had been.

But now they are using the new pond for its intended purpose (with the one small issue that they have laid it on top of the safety net, not underneath it, but that is a problem easily solved. And as you can see, Lilith Tinkerbell is very interested in the frogspawn; being a small cat she has never seen such a thing before.




APPEAL FOR FARPLACE ANIMAL RESCUE

Support Farplace Animal Rescue against a vindictive hate campaign

Support Farplace Animal Rescue against a vindictive hate campaign

Turn your signature into dozens more by sharing this petition and recruiting people you know to sign. 

 Farplace Animal Rescue has been the subject of a bitter hate campaign for several months now waged by a few bitter ex staff and volunteers and their friends.  This personal vendetta has seen a hate page created on Facebook and on Twitter, current staff and volunteers harassed, a hate call to the sanctuary, donors harassed and every possible public body receive malicious calls to attend.  Police and solicitors are involved for harassment and libel.
 The sanctuary has paid for a 2nd full vet inspection which was glowing.  It has held an open day with a mixture of old supporters and those who were not known to the sanctuary before, all of whom were glowing about the experience.  It has shown the local press around, who have written a glowing article about the rescue.
 Farplace helps animals rejected elsewhere like cats who are FIV+ in its expanded cat hospice (part of which is pictured here).  Farplace will not be able to help as many animals this year due to this campaign of hate.  Show your support for Farplace and the vision to help the most difficult of animals by signing your support here.

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:
From CFZ-USA:

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. 




KARL SHUKER: Contemplating the Con Rit


Karl Shuker assesses the con rit, one of the most mysterious of all sea serpents.

Read on...

Mystery animals of Staffordshire original art work for sale



A great chance to own some original cryptozoology artwork. For sale are 11 original pen and ink sketches that went on to be printed in the Mystery Animals of Staffordshire.   

They are currently for sale from eBay



 
And for those who haven’t got a copy of the Mystery Animals of Staffordshire you can get it from  amazon

Throughout the county of Staffordshire, strange, monstrous and terrible things lurk. Exotic big cats are said to roam Staffordshire's thick woods. Ghostly black dogs with red, glowing eyes faithfully haunt and patrol its ancient roads and well-worn pathways. Bloodthirsty werewolves are rumoured to be on the loose throughout the county. Fantastic and vicious water-beasts lurk deep within its streams, rivers, lakes and pools. Out-of-place wallabies, wild-boar, porcupines, coypu and armadillos have all been reported. And even the world's most famous hairy man-beast of all, Bigfoot, has been known to put in an appearance from time to time! Nick Redfern and Glen Vaudrey reveal the startling truths concerning these and many more mystery animals of Staffordshire.

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS VAGUELY ALERT

The Gonzo Daily - Monday
Today I am doing something that I very seldom do. I am deeply suspicious at the amount of online petitions that come my way; I suspect that they are as much a data gathering exercise for marketing companies, or even for someone more sinister, rather than a bona fide chance for us to take advantage of our democratic rights. However, today I have included a link to one such petition on both the blogs that I edit. Why? Jan Edwards is a friend of mine, and a very hard working advocate for animal rights. The sanctuary she runs has a 'no-kill' policy, and I have always admired their efforts. They are, apparently now under threat due to a smear campaign. Well, I have had smear campaigns against me over the years, and this type of cowardly bullying is made unimaginably easier via the anonymity of the internet. So I am on her side, and I urge everyone reading this to check the petition out...
This issue features an EXCLUSIVE Pink Fairies interview, an exclusive interview with prog album artist Sandor Kwiatkowski, the return of the mighty Six Foot Three, Clepsydra box set details, a massively desirable slice of Acid Mothers Temple memorabilia, news about Hawkwind live next weekend, an oral hygiene tool endorsed by an Oriental dictator, A Communique from Pussy Riot, the Psychedelic Warlords live, and more news, reviews, views, interviews and brindled gnus (OK, no specialised African antelopes 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 COMPLETELY FREE!!!
To make sure that you don't miss your copy of this and future issues make an old hippy a happy chappy and subscribe
http://eepurl.com/r-VTD
PS: If you are already a subscriber but think that you haven't been receiving your copies please check your spam filters. For some reason known only to the Gods of the internet, some e-mail programmes automatically count the magazine as 'spam' probably because it comes from a mass mailer. Either that or they are just jealous of our peerless content
*  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?