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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Tuesday, June 07, 2016

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

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

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.



BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



Broadly

Melissa Hovey-Larsen, president of the American Bigfoot Society and one of the few female cryptozoologist researchers, on dealing with Internet trolls ..

Don McDonald, from the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization, hosted the event. He told WDAM-TV that he has spent 20 years trying to track ...

The YouTuber writes "The two stories that were read on this installment were Midnight Ride with Bigfoot and Camping with Bigfoot. Each story was ... 

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.


  • ARTICLE: To save the big cats, we need Big Data An...
  • NEWSLINK: Leopard on the loose, panic grips reside...
  • THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN TRIES VALIANTLY

    The Gonzo Daily - Tuesday
    The post has once again been pleasantly innocuous. I am currently reading Frederick Forsyth's autobiography and am surprised to find things that I know full well to be factual inaccuracies, as well as some shoddy editing. I know that I am hardly one to talk on that score, but one would hope that the proofreadinhg department of Corgi books has more in terms of manpower than a brace of ageing and rather dotty hippies.
    And now I am on the want again. It is time, once again, for me to remind you all about this year's Weird Weekend featuring our very own Steve Ignorant, sponsored by our very own Erik Norlander, compèred by me and the return of  Nuneaton's Mr Entertainment, Barry Tadcaster with his pal Orang Pendek, and featuring a whole cornucopia of high strangeness and cerebral silliness. It would make me very happy if I could sell some more tickets..
    find out all about the Weird Weekend
    buy tickets to the Weird Weekend:
    THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Kevin Ayers - Stranger...
    Gib Guilbeau's 77th birthday jam
    Soft Machine interview
    Wayne Kramer's Flagrant Disregard For Authority - ...
    THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
    Gonzo Magazine #185
    Judge Smith, The Cure, Whole Earth Catalog, William Shakespeare, The Beatles, Dead Fred, Alternative London, The Preacher, Garth Ennis, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Dogwatch, That Legendary Wooden Lion, Hawkwind, and Yes fans had better look out!
    And once again we have another monumental groovefest for you all,  bringing you up to date with Judge Smith's lost prog rock masterpiece, sending Dead Fred to a desert island, while Doug goes to see The Cure, Alan goes to watch The Taming of the Shrew in Shakespeare's own theatre, Jon drools over Beatles guitars and is surprisingly kind about the pilot episode of The Preacher, and alongside all of this John B-G remembers Alternative London and the Whole Earth Catalog, And Biffo? He unearths some particularly disturbing examples of Mutant Turtle cosplay. This issue goes out with love to Dr Demitrius who died this week.
    And there  are radio shows from Strange Fruit, and Mack Maloney, and Friday Night Progressive takes a week off because of Vickistock which is described in words and pictures. 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 ouyside 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:
    Preacher, Songs from the Black Meadow, Crass, Iona, Dave Bainbridge, Sally Minnear, Roger Daltrey, Quadrophenia, Paul McCartney, Oasis, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Carla Lane, Harambe, Alan Wise, Marshall "Rock" Jones, Thomas Fekete, Rick Wakeman, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, Brand X, Third Ear Band, Captain Beefheart, Jim Jones, Gram Parsons, Mick Abrahams, Barbara Dickson, Judge Smith, The Cure, Alan Dearling, Taming of the Shrew, Roy Weard, John Brodie-Good, Mr Biffo, Xtul, Dead Fred, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Adam Ant, Bob Dylan, Joy Division, Neil Nixon, Cabaret Voltaire
                                                                                       
    Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
    Issue 184 (Mick Abrahams)
    Issue 183 (Daevid Allen)
    Issue 182 (Wally)
    Issue 181 (Beatles)
    Issue 180 (Beltane)
    Issue 179 (Gregg Kofi Brown)
    Issue 178 (Viv Stanshall)
    Issue 177 (David Gilmour)
    Issue 176 (Joey Molland and The Raz Band)
    Issue 175 (Larry Sanders)
    Issue 174 (Keith Emerson)
    Issue 173 (Pink Fairies action figures)
    Issue 172 (4th Eden)
    Issue 171 (Keith Levene)
    Issue 170 (Wildman Fischer)
    Issue 169 (Wildman Fischer)
    Issue 168 (Wakeman/Bowie)
    Issue 167 (Paul Kantner)
    Issue 166 (Spirits Burning)
    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 56 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two small 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 the infantile orange cat, and the adventurous kittens?

    NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Tuesday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1494 - Spain and Portugal divided the new lands they had discovered between themselves. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • The 'Houdini' honey badger and other surprisingly ...
  • Fish prefer to eat plastic over food – and it is k...
  • ARC wink launch a massive search for three critica...
  • Thai police charge 22 with wildlife trafficking fr...
  • Genetic switch that turned moths black also colors...

  • Scientists need your help to spot ladybirds


  • 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)