The CFZ Museum

The creation of a CFZ Museum is a dream that Jon Downes has had for years. I well recall traveling down to Jon's old home in Exeter, England, nearly 10 years ago, when Jon's ever-present passion for cryptozoology led him to come up with the vision of establishing a self-contained museum where all manner of zoological oddities could be put on display for visitors to the CFZ.

Now that Jon has inherited - from his late father - the ancestral home in the village of Woolfardisworthy, the CFZ Museum is finally becoming a reality, as Jon notes:

"Construction of the museum is well under way, and we hope that the rest of the floor will be laid today. We would like to thank Travis Perkins builder’s merchants http://www.travisperkins.co.uk/ for having generously sponsored this leg of the project.

"However, the project is proving far more expensive than we had originally envisaged, and further stages of construction may have to wait until we can either raise the money, or get further sponsorship.

"Here’s your chance to help. If you go to: http://www.cfz.org.uk/mus/index.htm you can make a donation to help us proceed. Every dollar and every pound helps, so if you are interested in what we do please help us. If everybody on our mailing list alone was to donate just £5 or $10 we would have enough to complete phases 1 and 2 of the museum plans immediately.

"The name of every person who makes a donation through this web-page will be placed on the museum website, and on a board in the museum itself, marking them as a benefactor. People can also sponsor a particular exhibit or animal for a year, and their name will be displayed prominently on the exhibit.

"The concept of the museum is to present evidence for the existence of unknown animals (cryptids),alongside exhibits illustrating the habitat where these creatures are reported to live. The first four `habitats` will be: the Central African rainforest; the Southern USA swampland; the Amazon Basin; and the Southeast Asian hillstream.

"Alongside these habitats will be exhibits detailing local freshwater and marine ecology, and their links to such local mystery animals such as 'The Beast of Exmoor.' Other "habitats" will be added as time goes on, and there will also be permanent exhibitions, consisting of computer installations and specimens brought back from our expeditions to Puerto Rico; Thailand; Sumatra; The Gambia and Mongolia."

This is your chance to become actively involved in the creation of the CFZ Museum; and Jon welcomes anyone and everyone to contact him at www.cfz.org.uk