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...




Wednesday, July 19, 2017

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: Beyond the barbed wire: animal-human conf...
  • NEWSLINK: Beardsley Zoo Opens Viewing Area For Rar...
  • NEWSLINK: Killing of escaped lions 'good decision'...

  • PHOTOS: Lioness nursing baby leopard captured on c...
  • MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: A Huge Elephant Seal in the South Atlantic

    Image result for elephant seal engravingThe following strange story, concerning a 42ft long sea elephant, if the original newspaper story is to be believed, comes to you from the Alaskan newspaper the Petersburg Weekly Report of June 24th 1916:

    " A year or two ago a warship of Great Britain`s Australian fleet was given the strange job of capturing or destroying a mysterious sea monster which had been reported off the Falkland islands, the scene of the recent German naval defeat [this would have been on December 8th 1914 - Rich] It is pretty safe to say that the officers, if not the crew, entertained grave doubts of the actual existence of the frightful creature which had been described. It was too terrifying,hideous, gigantic and ferocious. But shortly after the ship arrived in the waters where the monster.And a pretty good substance  it proved too.

    An attack was made upon it, and after some hours fighting with harpoons and quick firers the mysterious monster , which proved to be a sea elephant between thirteen and fourteen yards long, was slaughtered and taken aboard. "

    Now either there is a mis-print in the text and it meant 13 or 14 ft, or we have an unknown aquatic mammal here, maybe a southern hemisphere version of the north Pacific Steller`s Sea Cow, After all the climate around the Falklands is similar to the coastal regions of Alaska and Siberia where the Steller`s Sea Cow once lived.

    THE LAST WEEK AT THE CFZ-USA BLOG

    CFZ-USA

  • WALKING TYRANNOSAURUS
  • MISIGANEBIC - QUÉBEC'S LAKE CREATURE
  • MOCKING LAKE MONSTER
  • LE LOYON - STRANGE BEING OF SWITZERLAND
  • DOGMAN SIGHTING IN MICHIGAN
  • IS BIGFOOT FOOTAGE GENUINE?
  • MYSTERY BIRD OF GUADELOUPE
  • BIGFOOT SIGHTING IN KENTUCKY
  • STRANGE PHENOMENA SEEN BY SKEPTIC
  • HOMINID PANSPERMIA THEORY
  • KAIAIMUNU - NEW GUINEA DINOSAUR?
  • DRAGON OR WIZARD?
  • LITTLE PEOPLE
  • ROCK-THROWING BIGFOOT
  • GLOWING EYES SURROUND CAMP
  • WAS THIS A BIGFOOT HEAD?
  • FISH FALLS IN HONDURAS
  • MYSTERY WORM MAY BE NEW SPECIES
  • ARE THERE FERAL CHILDREN?
  • DEER MAN
  • GOOSE-HUMAN HYBRID
  • MYSTERY ANIMAL IN ARKANSAS
  • ARE THERE TIGERS IN AFRICA?
  • MYTHOLOGY OF THE WEREWOLF
  • BFRO TOWN HALL MEETING
  • SWAMP CREATURE IN MISSISSIPPI
  • MAN-EATING SALMON
  • DEAD BIGFOOT ALLEGEDLY FOUND
  • THREE-FINGERED MUMMY: AN ASSESSMENT
  • CAN CONSCIOUSNESS SURVIVE DEATH?
  • MONSTER OF REINDEER LAKE
  • CROSS-SPECIES SUCKLING
  • WITTENHEIM RADISH
  • BIGFOOT PURSUES MARRIED COUPLE
  • HUGE DOGMAN SIGHTING
  • NEW MEXICO MOTHMAN
  • FEARSOME SNAILS
  • SYKESVILLE MONSTER AND GOATMAN

  • WINGED HOMINID SEEN BY POLICEMAN
  • BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



    Bigfoot Tribe Attacks Family
    GrassyKnoll July 19, 2017 0. From Brenton Sawin's Mysteries to Search comes the conclusion tot he interview that rocked the bigfoot community.

    New Breakdown Video White Bigfoot In Field
    New Breakdown Video White Bigfoot In Field ... of Parabreakdown takes a look at piece of footage depicting a white bigfoot walking across a field.

    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN FEELS SURPRISINGLY POSITIVE

    The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
     
    It’s Wednesday and so together with my lovely step-secretary Olivia I take arms against a pile of correspondents. Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Today we have been battling against intransigent iPads, troublesome telephones, shitty Skype signals, crappy computers, laughable laptops and something Olivia told me about 4G, that I not only cannot begin to understand, but am unable to think of a jolly alliteration for. However, utilising levels of valour not seen since the battle of Rouke’s Drift, we have managed to do pretty well everything we set out to do, except for a few bits which I couldn’t be bothered to do. Do you detect a certain amount of ennui in my manner here? Damn tooting!But now, here is the news:
     
    THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Hovercraft Pirates - A...
    MORE DATES FROM YES
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE GOOD DOCTOR
    THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
    A Conversation with Igor Stravinsky, 1957
     
    THE YO HO HO AND A BUCKET OF PROG ISSUE
     
    n which Jon interviews Stu Nicholson from Galahad, Richard goes to the New Forest folk festival, and sees Ric Sanders, Show of Hands and the Acoustic Strawbs, we ask whether modern music is rubbish, Alan ties Jon to a Listening Post, and all with a Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of Prog.
     
    Yup, and it’s all free!
     
    And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Strange Fruit, Canterbury Sans Frontieres, and Friday Night Progressive. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, C J Stone, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and numbats with the right to choose (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have become eligible to vote, 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:
     
    Morrissey, Rolling Stones, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Nile Rodgers, Chic, Brian May, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Canterbury Sans Frontieres, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Tamara Grigoryevna Miansarova, Raymond Chikapa Enock Phiri, Joseph Fire Crow, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Melvyn "Deacon" Jones, Fresh Kid Ice, Egil Kapstad, Nelsan Ellis, Mary Hopkin, Ashton Gardner and Dyke, Stu Nicholson, Galahad, Alan Dearling, Crass, Scott Walker, Cockney Rebel, Captain Beefheart, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Plastic Ono Band, Belle and Sebastian, The Polyphonic Spree, Gram Parsons, Roger Waters, Alfredo Zitarrosa, Richard Foreman, New Forest Folk Festival, Kev Rowland, Warner Drive, Wilderness Dream, Bloody Hammers, Phil Campbell & The Bastard Sons, Dialeto, Dusan Jevtovic, Datura 4, Da Vinci, Gateway to Hell, Intrcptr, Laces Out, Charlotte Phillipson, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Hawkwind, Xtul, Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead, Prince, Slipknot, Neil Nixon, Dread Zeppelin
     
    Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
     
    Issue 241 (Carol Hodge and Steve Ignorant)
    Issue 240 (Midsummer Madness)
    Issue 239 (Miss Peach)
    Issue 238 (Hawkwind)
    Issue 237 (Hawkwind)
    Issue 236 (Manchester)
    Issue 235 (Jon Anderson)
    Issue 234 (Al Atkins)
    Issue 233 (Richard Strange)
    Issue 232 (Roy Weard)
    Issue 231 (Allan Holdsworth)
    Issue 230 (Curtis Womack)
    Issue 229 (Larry Wallis)
    Issue 228 (Space Pharoahs)
     
    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 57 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two half grown 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 Archie and the Cats?

    NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)



    Loch Ness monster 'FOUND': Photo shows mysterious creature stalking Scottish village
    A photo taken in the west Stirlingshire village of Killearn shows a strange looking creature with a distinctive long neck roaming through a field.


    Pascagoula resident Bud Ehlert took a photo of what he thought looked like the famous Loch Ness Monster on Lake Yazoo at the Inner Harbor.

    He cured illnesses, rendered snakes' venom harmless, resurrected the dead and even saved a swimmer from being bitten by the Loch Ness monster, ...

    LIZ BITAKARAMIRE: WHERE IS ROD HULL WHEN YOU NEED HIM?

    I have been meaning to write this blog post for a couple of weeks now, so forgive me if this is old news...

    The Rochdale Observer reported on Wednesday 21st June that the Animals in Distress Sanctuary of Littleborough, Rochdale recently lost a relative of the emu. The '5 ft' rhea, which was donated to the charity and upon arrival, promptly leaped a six-foot fence on the property, before naffing off onto the moors. 

    Sanctuary manager Melanie Dunne attempted to catch the rhea with the help of her staff but all attempts have so far resulted in failure. They did find it on Blackstone Edge Rd after a tip-off, but it "shot off at about 20mph" before it could be apprehended. 

    Journalist Damon Wilkinson writes: 'It eats grass and will be able to survive on the moorland, but Melanie says she is eager to get it back. 

    'A number of sightings of the bird have been reported to the sanctuary, which takes in unwanted and abused pets and farm animals and is currently home to dozens of lizards, snakes, goats, sheep, horses, alpacas and [much to Jon Downes's no-doubt excitement, Lizzy's addendum] chickens, since its escape.'


    If anyone in the area has seen the rhea, or has a quad-bike staff can borrow to give them a cat-in-hell's chance of keeping up with it, please call on 01706 371731. 




    NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Wednesday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1553 - Fifteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey was deposed as Queen of England after claiming the crown for nine days. Mary, the daughter of King Henry VIII, was proclaimed Queen. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Know your enemy: Exposing threatened species to pr...
  • Sea Turtles Getting Smaller (South Africa) - via ...
  • New U.S. Toad Species Discovered for First Time in...
  • When butterfly male sex-bias flaps its wings

  • Strange silk: Why rappelling spiders don't spin ou...



  • 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.