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...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



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, October 30, 2013

International team hopes to settle thylacine mystery once and for all

thylacine
Thylacine expedition leader Mike Williams, left, and Rebecca Lang are part of the expert team hoping to fi nd evidence that could solve Tasmania’s great Tasmanian tiger mystery. Picture: Chris Kidd Source: Mercury
THE thylacine has officially been put on notice: the hunt is on.
An international team of naturalists from the Centre for Fortean Zoology has arrived in Tasmania for the first in a series of well-resourced and professional expeditions into Tasmania's wilderness to hunt for evidence of the Tasmanian tiger.
Although the animal was officially declared extinct in the 1980s, reports of thylacine sightings are still common and expedition leader Mike Williams from NSW has high hopes that they can find something.
"The problem with a lot of the sightings from members of the public is that they're generally caught by surprise, and their photos are taken on things like mobile phones and aren't very good," he said.
"It will take really good quality video to really convince anyone and preferably a video shot by a person, so we've brought as much gear as we can to improve our chances of being ready if we do see one." Mr Williams is highly regarded in his field and has spent many years searching for evidence of the big cats that are said to roam areas of rural NSW and Victoria.
He is careful not to be too specific about the regions they will investigate in Tasmania, but said they would focus on the state's northwest and southwest.
"We're meeting up with some eyewitnesses to begin with and that will help us narrow down our search areas," he said.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH: John Blashford-Snell and Franek Kluski



DALE DRINNON: Australian Sea Monster, Hairy people, bigfoot, sasquatch and skunk ape, Frontiers of Anthropology, Benny's Blogs

New at Frontiers of Zoology:

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.














THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS FED-UP

I can, for once, get on with writing deathless prose, answering e-mails and generally trawling the few bits of social media to which I subscribe looking for people that I want to comment on something. Add to that the fact that I now have a pair of rather nifty studio monitors in my office, and I now no longer have to keep the music low enough so I can hear the telephone.

I got an e-mail today from a regular reader of my inky-fingered scribblings, in which he told me that I shouldn't be so self-deprecating when I am writing. It would be much better if I came on more assertive. It was a very interesting e-mail and massively kindly meant, but I disagree with him, and I feel that I should explain why. The strapline 'Because some of us still believe that this stuff is important' really sets out our stall. Once upon a time the music and cultural issues about which I write each day were centre stage in Western society. Now they are not. We all have smart phones but we as a society have lost sight of the social and cultural issues some of us feel are important. This is basically what I am writing about and campaigning for with all the things that we do: musical, cultural, scientific and Fortean. I am not a big corporate dude in a commercial office; I am just what I say I am: a disabled bloke trying to change the world from a badly converted potato shed. I would like to quote Hawkwind at this point and say that culturally speaking I am an "Urban Guerilla, I make bombs in my cellar", but in the current sociopolitical climate that would be a very unwise thing to do.




In One of his Final Interviews, Frank Zappa Pronounces Himself “Totally Unrepentant”
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/in-one-of-his-final-interviews-frank.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?

CFZ PEOPLE: Rosie Curtis


Happy Birthday Honeypie

INAPPROPRIATE CORNER: 'Once Upon a Time': The White Rabbit and Snow White's magical lady parts



Does Snow White have a magical vagina on "Once Upon a Time"? Thanks to an unfortunately -- but hilariously -- timed promo for "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland," the White Rabbit made it look like Ginnifer Goodwin's lady parts were some sort of magical portal.

The resulting image is kind of amazing.

While the rabbit graphic is incredible on its own, Snow White's line just before the promo appears makes it even better:

"You're searching for something powerful enough to vanquish the queen."

Is ABC implying that Snow White is hiding that something in her pants?

According to a "Once Upon a Time" showrunner, alas, the whole thing was a mistake and not some new sort of subversive advertising. "I never thought I would have so many emails about Ginny's vagina," Edward Kitsis told EW.com. "It's embarrassing, but at the same time, it's so silly it's hard to take serious. It's so obvious that somebody didn't realize what they were doing."

Read on...

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

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

On this day in 1945 Henry Winkler was born, ayyy. Fun Fact: studio executives would not let The Fonz wear a leather jacket during the entire first season of Happy Days as they thought it would make him lookalike a criminal, rapscallion or ne'er-de-well. For season 2 they agreed that he could wear a leather jacket when he was with his motorcycle. During the entire run of season 2 The Fonz always has his motorcycle with him in every scene as a result.

And now the news:
  • Plans to help the pine marten recover in southern ...
  • Critically Endangered Pacific gray whales get repr...
  • New species of gecko, skink and frog discovered in...
  • Echolocation: Bats and Whales Behave in Surprising...
  • Poached rhino’s skin grafts a failure
  • Giant Oarfish Dissected! Worms, Eggs Found Inside

  • Evidence of Europe's smallest rodent is big news f...

  • Fonzie jumps the shark:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ZGKI8vpcg