Cryptozoology Online: Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) - the world's best cryptozoology organisation

Natural History Outreach

Natural History is no longer seen as a suitable hobby for young people, but in many cases is now an illegal one. A colleague of mine who works for the BBC Natural History Unit told me that children making a documentary on pond dipping were forced to wear safety helmets and rubber gloves before they were allowed near a garden pond. It is now illegal to take frogspawn from your own garden pond and put it in a fishtank. Changing social mores have meant that most of the children of people I know sit indoors all day playing computer games rather than exploring what little countryside is left. This may seem trivial to you, but Darwin, Linneaus, Mendel, and Gerald Durrell, amongst many others, were amateur naturalists first and foremost. Most professional zoologists started off as amateur naturalists. If kids are no longer able, or encouraged, to do this is it any wonder most of them seem to want to grow up to be image consultants or TV presenters?

We intend, again utilising kids, the long term unemployed and the disabled, to carry out a string of community projects over the next two years, aimed at raising children’s interest in Natural History. This is something that we are already doing with Exotic Pets magazine, but we intend to expand our activities and target groups.

Partnerships in Conservation

Over the last year of so, we have been travelling around the country looking at various zoos. And one thing that is becoming increasingly obvious is that most of them have exactly the same animals in them. The only real difference is that they are better exhibited in some zoos than others. This is - of course - a generalisation, but if you look hard enough you will see what we mean. Every zoo we have visited has at least three of the following species:

Bennett’s wallaby
Parma wallaby
Coati
Meerkat
Ring-tailed lemur

This is largely because of the burgeoning amount of government (both UK, and European) legislation on the matter, as well as the code of conduct for members of BIAZA (The British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums). Nobody would deny that the concept behind this legislation is sound enough. There is no justification, for example, for zoos selling their surplus stock for financial profit. But the legislation is - like so much Govermental action - completely ill thought out, and is going to lead to a complete stultification of the zoo establishment in the United Kingdom if something is not done about it.

Something that we find even more peculiar, is that although there are equally swingeing laws governing the private animal keepers,there are animals which are kept within the private sector which can never be seen in any zoo, despite the fact that they would make fine, and educational, exhibits.

There are animals in the CFZ museum collection, for example, which cannot be seen in any zoo, and really should be.

We have therefore come up with what we believe to be an innovative new idea, and are in the process of launching what we call `The Partners in Conservation Initiative”. We are actively seeking ongoing relationships with conservation and animal welfare organisations in the private sector.

In this way we can showcase the invaluable work done by these organisations, help to publicise their activities, and work together with them to educate the general public as to how they can get involved with research and conservation work around the world, before it is too late to save what is left of our planet We are at present in talks with several non-commercial organisations within the private sector, with the aim of launching the first couple of these partnership agreements before the beginning of the next season.