Is the Moa really extinct or is there a breeding population,hiding
in the bush near kakanui?
I recently received an email from a pair of witnesses who saw some small EMU like chicks near kakanui about three years
Due to ill health I have not been swift in following this up. But I am currently working on the situation
at the moment. If anyone has had similar sightings I would be extremely keen to hear from you.
|Is this a Picture of the Lindis Lion
Alleged Big Cat Reported in Lindis Pass,
Posted: 15 Apr 2009 06:16 AM PDT
The Himalayas had their Yetis, while Canada's
Sasquatch was known informally as "Bigfoot".
And now, the Lindis Pass hill country may -
or may not - have its "Big Ginge".
Scottish tourists Charlie and Marie Limond photographed
what they described as a "lynx-sized mountain lion", at McLeays Creek in the Lindis Pass.
"It was definitely way bigger than your domestic
cat. About the size of an Alsatian dog," Mr Limond told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
The couple were driving along State Highway
8, through the Lindis Pass, last week, when Mr Limond said he saw the animal "out of the corner of my eye".
They turned their car around and said they watched
the big cat, about 200m away, from the roadside for about seven minutes.
"I got a real good look at it through my binoculars.
Our small digital camera wasn't able to get a decent photograph, but it was the same goldy colour as a mountain lion," he
Mr Limond was unshaken in his belief he had
seen a "small lion-like animal". He based his claims on having been to Africa and seen lions at game parks.
However, Wanaka Area Department of Conservation
manager Paul Hellebrekers said the couple may have sighted an extremely large feral cat.
"There is nothing to substantiate that we're
not just dealing with a very large cat," he said.
Dunstan Downs Station farmer Geva Innes laughed
when the Otago Daily Times contacted her to ask whether there had been any reports of a "big ginger tomcat the size of a small
lion" stalking the hills.
"We shoot feral cats round here," she said.
The feral pests often roamed the hills and grew
big. Feral cats could also carry the disease toxoplasmosis, which caused abortions in sheep, she said.
NOTE: It's hard to gauge
the true size of this animal but I suspect that it's a large feral cat...though the color is unusual for a feral feline. Lon
BATS ATTACK IN ROTORUA
Bats attack in Rotorua
6:50AM Monday February 02, 2009
Source: Newstalk ZB
There are reports of bats attacking two men in Rotorua.
Taxi driver Ngaia Monaham says two men jumped in her car near Amohia Street just after 3.00am Monday.
She says they told a bizarre story of being attacked and bitten by bats.
Monaham says she did not believe them at first but than noticed they had bite marks on their arms.
She says she and another taxi driver went back to Amohia Street with a torch and found hundreds of bats flying around in
A press release from the Centre for fortean Zoology
(which I am proud to be associated with.) gives insight into their latest expedition of the trail of the Almasty in the Russian
state of Karbadino-Balkaria.
We wish them all the best on their expediaiton and safe return from
this volatile area.
Here is a press release issued by Jon.
If you get a chance Watch the CFZ Monthly Telecast its always extremely interesting and Jon presents
an excellent mix of the rare, cryptid and newly discovered.
QUEST FOR A CAVEMAN
Man beasts and cave men in the 21st
Century? Surely not. But a group of British explorers and scientists, backed by a renowned Geneticist from Oxford University,
embark on an intrepid expedition into a war zone on Saturday, and they hope to come back with compelling evidence for the
existence of such things.
The yeti is one of the most iconic mystery
animals in the world. Even in the 21st Century when mankind likes to think that it has conquered all the wild places of the
planet, this hulking, hairy man beast still rears its ancient head and intrigues zoologists and explorers alike.
Only this week, there has been news
of a new yeti sighting in the remote West Garo hills of north-eastern India. Park ranger Dipu Marak described seeing "a black
and grey ape-like animal which stands about 3m (nearly 10ft) tall". Recently Derbyshire based artist and conservationist Pollyanna
Pickering hit the headlines when she released details of what appears, on the face of it, to be a specimen of a yeti scalp
found in a remote monastery in Bhutan. The yeti appears to be an unknown species of ape, but sightings of such creatures,
and perhaps more intriguingly, sightings of alleged primitive human-like creatures, which appear similar to the iconic Hollywood
images of cave-men, still come in on a regular basis from around the world.
The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ]
in North Devon (the world's largest organisation which searches for unknown animal species) is launching a major new expedition
this week. The five explorers, led by zoologist Richard Freeman (38) - the Zoological Director of the Bideford-based centre
- will be ignoring Foreign Office suggestions and flying to the tiny Russian state of Karbadino-Balkaria for a three week
expedition. In Russia they will be liaising with Ukranian biologist Grigoriy Panchenko who has been studying the creatures
for fourteen years and who has had four sightings of the wildmen, which are known locally as almasty. The expedition
is being backed by renowned academic Prof. Bryan Sykes of Oxford University, who hit the headlines a few years ago with his
remarkable book The Seven Daughters of Eve which conclusively proved, through analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of
a large sampling of people across the continent, that nearly everyone living in Europe today is descended from one of just
seven women who lived between 10,000 and 45,000 years ago.
The Foreign Office website warns against
travel to several Russian republics including Kabardino-Balkaria "as terrorism and kidnapping in these regions remain a
serious problem", but in a statement released today Freeman explains why the expedition will still be going ahead.
"We haven't really got
an option", he says. "If we pull out now, a lot of money and even more work will have been
wasted. Grigoriy has told us that kidnapping and terrorism have not been an issue in the parts of the country where we are
going, and anyway, the path of science MUST continue unhindered, if we are to push back the boundaries
of human knowledge. There will be eight or ten of us in the party, if you include Grigoriy's guides, and any band of potential
kidnappers would find that they had a fight on their hands".
The expedition will be tracking
the almasty and using sophisticated infra-red trigger cameras and ex-military nightsight equipment, but will also be
carrying out a campaign of DNA testing amongst the inhabitants of the remote mountainous forests. "According to local folklore
the almasty can interbreed with humans" says Jonathan Downes (48), the Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology.
"Professor Sykes has done some remarkable work with mitochondrial DNA, and if any of the people whom we are testing have
any trace of DNA from anything other than a modern human, it will tell us that somewhere in the maternal line, one of his
or her ancestors was not a member of the same species as the rest of us."
Although the expedition will not be
returning to the UK until mid-July, you needn't wait until then for news from the expedition. Through the wonders of satellite
technology the expedition website will be running updates every few days. On the 17th August the team will be presenting their
findings to the world as part of the three-day annual convention of the CFZ. Pollyanna Pickering will also be there and, following
the interest that her revelations about a putative yeti scalp in Bhutan caused recently, will be taking questions from cryptozoological
researchers from around the world.
CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is available for interview. Images are also available. Please telephone Jon or Corinna
on +44 (0)1237 431413 for details.
Notes for Editors:
* The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is the world’s
largest mystery animal research organisation. It was founded in 1992 by British author Jonathan Downes (48) and is a non-profit
making (not for profit) organisation registered with H.M. Stamp Office.
* Life-president of the CFZ is Colonel John
Blashford-Snell OBE, best known for his groundbreaking youth work organising the ‘Operation Drake’ and ‘Operation
Raleigh’ expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.
* CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is the author and/or editor of over
20 books. Island of Paradise, his first hand account of two expeditions to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in search of
the grotesque vampiric chupacabra, will be published in the next few weeks.
* The CFZ have carried out expeditions
across the world including Sumatra, Mongolia, Guyana, Gambia, Texas, Mexico, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Loch Ness, and
* CFZ Press are the world’s largest publishers of books on mystery animals. They also publish Animals
& Men, the world’s only cryptozoology magazine, and Exotic Pets, Britain’s only dedicated magazine
on the subject.
* The CFZ produce their own full-length documentaries through their media division called CFZtv (www.cfztv.org).
One of their films Lair of the Red Worm which was released in early 2007 and documents their 2005 Mongolia expedition
has now been seen by nearly 40,000 people.
* The CFZ is based in Jon Downes’ old family home in rural North Devon
which he shares with his wife Corinna (51). It is also home to various members of the CFZ’s permanent directorate and
a collection of exotic animals.
* Corinna and Jonathan Downes are shareholders in Tropiquaria – a small zoo in
North Somerset (www.tropiquaria.co.uk).
* Jonathan Downes presents
a monthly web TV show called On the Track (http://cfzmonthly.blogspot.com/) which covers cryptozoology and work
of the CFZ.
* The CFZ are opening a Visitor Centre and Museum in Woolsery, North Devon.
* Each year the CFZ
presents an annual conference. This year’s event will be held in August, and will feature the first public appearance
by the Russian Expedition team.
* Following their successful partnership with Capcom www.capcom.com on the 2007 Guyana
expedition, the CFZ are looking for more commercial sponsors.
Here is whats new in the field of New Zealand Cryptozoology:
I was recently contacted, via e-mail regarding a sighting of a possible Waitoreke in Gisbourne during the 1980s.
creature was 1.5 m long and displaying typical sea otter behavior by smashing shells on its chest.
The sighting lasted
a good 20 minutes with the creature about 10 m away showing total disregard for the witness.
This will be one of the very
rare North Island sightings of these wonderful creatures.
Even more unusual is sighting took place at sea, most Waitoreke
sightings are in areas of freshwater.
Rex Gilroy recently returned from his New Zealand expedition
with more footprints and evidence of Moa in the Hawkes Bay area.
During the expedition to Gilroy's tried to get in
touch with me but were unable to as I was unavailable due to a family crisis.
I have therefore not viewed any evidence either photographically or otherwise so cannot comment on whether Rex did actually
find anything or not.
I sincerely hope that if Rex has managed to find definitive proof he will present it to the proper
authorities, namely the Department of conservation so a proper thorough search can be undertaken, and if the birds exist,
the area can be protected and so can the birds.