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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Friday, April 04, 2014

CFZ PEOPLE: Mary Downes (1922-2002)

Happy Birthday Mum

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. 

  • NEWSLINK: Big-cat expert to discuss wildlife prese...
  • UK SIGHTINGS: "Giant" big cat spotted roaming in S...

  • NEWSLINK: OSHA cites two serious violations in She...
  • BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



    New York Daily News

    Bigfoot hunter Rick Dyer admits he lied about killing the beast
    The self-described "Best Bigfoot Tracker in the World" claimed the 8-foot-tall, 800-pound animal was being investigated at a lab at a college in ...

    So That Wasn't Really Bigfoot? | Off Topic | Texas Fishing Forum
    http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/....php?cmpid=hpbn. Dude from Australia quit the exhibit and returned home after finding out the body was 

    Bigfoot Evidence: Bigfoot On Display At Amarillo Zoo!
    With April Fool's Day upon us, we know the bigfoot stories will start flooding in. Surprisingly enough, our first one comes from the Amarillo Zoo. We're ...

    It's curtains for 'Bigfoot killer' - KTRH - Houston's News, Weather & Traffic Station
    It's curtains for 'Bigfoot killer'. It's curtains for 'Bigfoot killer'. Just last month, I spoke with Rick Dyer about his Bigfoot exhibit. Now THIS! Man's quest for

    Bigfoot in Butler County? - Huskers Illustrated - 247Sports
    Bigfoot buzz quiets, but question lingers after reported Nebraska sighting. Word spread around Butler County and beyond late last summer about

    Newshour | Bigfoot Hunter Admits He Lied About Killing Beast
    Bigfoot hunter admits he lied about killing beast. nydailynews (2 hr 46 min ago). Date. Stumbleupon. The Las Vegas man who proclaimed to have 

    Bigfoot Evidence: Rick Dyer's Costume Maker Reveals His Secret, How Hank Was Made
    Bigfoot Evidence Shawn
    It's clear now that Dyer's main purpose for doing the hoax was to try generate income and fool the Facebook group, Facebook Find Bigfoot. Dyer was ...

    Bigfoot tracker admits body is a hoax - Viral News 365
    SAN ANTONIO â€' After a falling out with his Bigfoot crew, master tracker Rick Dyer, whose new title may be “con artist†, admitted that the 8-foot ... 

    Bigfoot tracker admits body is a fake News Chron.com News - News.nom.co
    After an apparent falling out of the Bigfoot crew, master tracker Rick Dyer admitted he was touring the country with a fake body., News from Chron.com 

    Possible Bigfoot caught peeking, what do you see? | BigfootBlogger.Com
    Brian Brushwood's Lecture on Bigfoot · Brian Brushwood's Lecture Bigfoot and Cryptozoology · Believers Only: Bigfoot On The Hill footage · Interview

    Bigfoot Hunter's Latest Catch Proves To Be ANOTHER Hoax // Mr. Conservative
    As if there wasn't enough controversy circling the self-acclaimed Bigfoot hunter, Rick Dyer, has come into the spotlight once again as a fraud and a liar 

    Bigfoot News March 30, 2014 | Beyond Highbrow - Robert Lindsay
    Certainty that Morgan Matthews openly states in words in the screen in Shooting Bigfoot that MM believes that there were real Bigfoot(s) running about ...0

    That Nebraska bigfoot sighting? A bust. | Doubtful News
    Last September, we brought you the story of a teen who says he saw Bigfoot at 5:30 AM in Nebraska. Months later, the update is, there is no update

    Bigfoot Evidence: Follow Up Nebraska Teen Bigfoot Sighting Hair Samples
    In September of 2013 there was a hot bigfoot sighting report going around about a teenage driver who saw a bigfoot cross the road in front of his car 

    Was it a bear or Bigfoot? - Supernatural UFO
    Via Occult View Until now I never met someone who actually had a Bigfoot sighting. I always thought Bigfoot sightings were mostly the result of cranks,


    Using a Drone to Search for Skunk Ape / Bigfoot - Believe It Tour
    When it comes to research, having the latest in technology will always give you the upper-hand. With personal drones hitting the market that are ...

    Bigfoot Body Shown In Katy Was A Hoax Says Event Organizer | Covering Katy
    HOUSTON (News 92 FM) — A former publicist says the body of a dead Bigfoot now on national tour is a hoax. Andrew Clacy told NEWS 92 FM famed ...

    Bigfoot Evidence: Fringe News: Best HD Bigfoot Video EVER! Newest Bigfoot Footage Unveiled
    Join Rev. Jeff for the weekly Bigfoot breaking stories like Sylvanic HD Bigfoot video stills and the latest Bigfoot runs up a hill video. Watch the video for 

    Bigfoot Evidence: Listen to this interview with Chris Russell, the toy maker who created Rick Dyer's ...
    Bigfoot Evidence Shawn
    The Bigfoot community has started an online petition to charge Dyer with internet fraud. There are now over 250 signatures: Petitioning United States ...

    Bigfoot saga takes odd turn
    Rick Dyer, a self-proclaimed “master tracker”, brought what he calls a Bigfoot to Alamo Drafthouse Park North on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014, to show

    Olga Donskoya Reporting for Bigfoot News Today - Mulder's World
    Olga Donskoya Reporting for Bigfoot News Today. Posted Tuesday, April 01, 2014 ... Bison Running for their lives · Bigfoot seen walking up a hill 

    BREAKING NEWS: Long-sought DNA proof of Bigfoot is confirmed! | Doubtful News
    It's THAT day again, where every headline and story must be doubted or you will end up looking like a fool. It's also the day we take off


    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. 







    THE GONZO BLOG DOO DAH MAN DOES SOME THINGS THEN HE DOES A FEW MORE THINGS

    The Gonzo Daily - Friday
     
    Yesterday it was announced that “Plans to roll out the controversial badger cull pilots nationwide across England have been dropped by Owen Paterson after a damning independent report found the shoots were not effective or humane". This isn’t a complete victory, because the culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire are still going ahead, although I am sure that plans are afoot from the so-called “extreme elements” to disrupt them further and make them unworkable. I am proud of the small part that I played in this campaign. I doubt whether the song and video that we made, featuring Graham dressed up as David Cameron and two glove puppet badgers had that much effect, although a certain socialist pop group got huffy with me accusing me of not taking parliament seriously, a charge to which I will gladly plead guilty.
     
     
     
    ‘I had lots of material’: Jon Davison on the forthcoming Yes album
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/04/i-had-lots-of-material-jon-davison-on.html
     
    Chris Squire - Yes bassist Chris Squire writing autobiography
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/04/chris-squire-yes-bassist-chris-squire.html
     
    Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. North American tour
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/04/acid-mothers-temple-melting-paraiso-ufo.html
     
     

    The next issue of Gonzo Weekly is well under way, and assuming that everything goes according to plan will be out tomorrow. It will feature interviews with Erik Norlander on the new Rocket Scientists album, Judge Smith on the early days of Van der Graaf Generator, and Jakko Jakszyk on the forthcoming ELP reissue and the King Crimson rehearsals. There are also features on The Psychedelic Warlords, Keith Levene, Acid Mothers Temple, Galahad and more news, reviews, views, interviews and Matschie's tree-kangaroos (OK, no arboreal macropods from New Guinea, 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!!!
     
     
     
    PS: If you are already a subscriber but think that you haven't been receiving your copies or the ad hoc competitions and news I post out a couplee of times a week, 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 an orange kitten named after a song by Frank Zappa 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 kitten?

    WIN!

    Badger cull : Anti-badger cull flyer on a stile near Blakeney, Gloucestershire
    Anti-badger cull flyer on a stile near Blakeney, Gloucestershire. Photograph: Sam Frost for The Guardian
    Plans to roll out the controversial badger cull pilots nationwide across England have been dropped by Owen Paterson after a damning independent report found the shoots were not effective or humane.
    The two pilot culls, in Gloucestershire and Somerset, will continue with improvements recommended by the independent expert panel (IEP), including more and better-trained marksmen. But plans to start badger culls in 10 other areas have been abandoned, the environment secretary announced on Thursday, telling MPs he was taking the responsible approach.
    "This disease is the most pressing animal health problem in the UK," Paterson said, noting that 26,600 cattle were slaughtered in 2013 and that the disease had cost taxpayers £500m in the past decade. But he accepted that "on effectiveness … the culls did not make as much progress as we hoped." He said the cull operators had often faced a "disgraceful amount of intimidation from some of the more extreme protesters".
    The shadow environment secretary, Maria Eagle, said the abandoned roll-out was a humiliating climbdown for Paterson. "Consistent with his inept handling of this shambles he has put prejudice before science, secrecy before transparency, conflict before consensus and posturing before good policy," she said.
    Prof Rosie Woodroffe, a leading badger expert who conducted alandmark decade-long trial of badger culling, said even the two pilot culls should be halted. "The pilot culls performed so poorly in effectiveness and humaneness, I would stop and invest in something more promising," she said.
    The culls, aimed at curbing the rise of tuberculosis in cattle, were dismissed by senior scientists as "mindless" before they started and have provoked huge public opposition since, and led to ministers losing a vote in the House of Commons. The night-time shoots failed to kill enough badgers in the allotted time, which scientists warned could lead to escaping badgers spreading TB more widely and increasing it in cattle.

    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-USA:

    ANARCHIST CRED FOR THE CFZ

    Matt Salusbury has managed to achieve what I have been trying to do since the inception of the Centre for Fortean Zoology. He has given us Anarchist credibility. I was pootling about online looking for something else when I found this:

    http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/


    OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

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

    On this day in 2012 Tardar Sauce was born. Sauce is better known as Grumpy Cat because of her permanently grumpy looking expression and has become one of the most famous cats on the internet.
    And now the news:

  • Large ocean predators evolved into gentle giants 5...
  • New Whale Stranding Is Painful Evidence for Naval ...
  • Killing a name of an extinct sea cow species
  • New national park for Afghanistan
  • Large carnivores with large geographic ranges bett...
  • UK wildlife rich grasslands vanishing
  • New mapping technique may aid Scottish shark proje...
  • Attracting wild bees to farms is good insurance po...
  • No badger cull expansion after trial failure
  • Animals at risk of extinction being ignored by res...
  • Koalas may disappear in areas affected by offset s...
  • A quarter of Europe's bumblebees, vital to crops, ...
  • Australia’s Dingo Is One-of-a-Kind
  • Eating Fewer Calories May Help Monkeys Live Longer...
  • Research model unlocks secrets of wolf pack behavi...
  • Attention changes in the course of a dog's life mi...
  • Elver migration in Somerset and Gloucestershire ai...
  • Scientists solve the riddle of zebras' stripes: Th...
  • Modern lions' origin revealed by genetic analysis

  • Trilobite Beetles are Happy Being on Land, Alive i...
  • These videos are rather fun; “Kids React to Memes: Grumpy Cat”:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIQTNhZyWGE