The FURthest North Crew (FNC), Canada’s oldest Furry amateur press association, celebrates its twentieth anniversary next July. That may seem far in the future, but the FNC has started a recruiting drive to fill its 18 membership openings by then.

If you can write – articles, fiction, Furry con reports, or just social chatter – or draw, and you can print your own fanzine of at least three pages every six months (with neighborhood photocopy shops today, anyone can), send 38 copies to the Official Editor, and pay a small membership fee to help cover expenses, you can join the FNC. Contact Jenora or see the FNC website for more information, and read on for a little history.

Two young German Shepherds, year-and-a-half old Devaki and Makita, were shot and killed on November 12. Co-owners Shannon Hautala, Gary Kuoppala and Alexis Gunderson spoke with the press.

The owners were doing chores on their farm in Clinton Township, Iron Range, Minnesota.

The dogs ducked under a fence and ran into the woods. The owners started calling for the dogs as soon as they went out of sight. Hautala said she heard gunshots shortly afterwards.

The next morning, Hautala found the dogs dead near a hunting stand on the adjoining property. Hautala said the hunters admitted to her they had shot the dogs. Kuoppala said:

All they said is they can shoot anything that comes on their land and if the dogs come on their land, they can shoot them.

Last month, some things happened. Here is an archive of them.

Is the new Japanese animated feature Redline Furry? No, but its trailer, just released in the U.S., does show a human racecar driver (with an impossible Pompadour) competing against background Furry bioengineered or alien opponents in the far future.

Redline, directed by Takeshi Koike, produced by Tokyo’s Madhouse animation studio over seven years, and introduced on the international film festival circuit in 2009, comes to the USA for a one-week theatrical run. It is playing in downtown Los Angeles this month and in NYC from January 6, and will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on January 17.

The Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association, which administers the annual Ursa Major Awards, has updated the 2011 Anthropomorphic Reading List to include the titles recommended by furry fans through the beginning of December. This list is often used by fans to nominate in the next year's Awards.

All fans are invited to recommend worthwhile anthropomorphic works in eleven categories (motion pictures, dramatic short films or broadcasts, novels, short fiction, other literary works, graphic stories, comic strips, magazines, published illustrations, websites, and games) first published during 2011, if they are not already on the list.

Send in your recommendations and read the List to see what other fans have recommended this year. Have you read all sixteen comic strips, for example? What have you been missing?

This month is the “last chance” to recommend anything anthropomorphic first appearing in 2011.¹ The List has been revised this year to include Furry websites. If you have any favorite websites that were not previously eligible, please recommend them now.

Progress is being made on the Cóyotl Awards, a juried award for furry fiction to be run by the Furry Writers' Guild, with the first winners announced at Rainfurrest 2012 next September.

While some details remain private to guild members, preliminary rules have been published. The award is currently to be presented in General and Mature sections for the best Short Story, Novella (over 7500 words) and Novel (over 40,000 words).

Each member may submit five nominations to each category for works they are uninvolved with to a five-member council, rating them on plot, character, setting and literary merit; the four works with the highest weighted average will be voted on by guild members.

Update (18 Oct): The restriction on the number of nominations was removed before the ballot closed.

When people think of the most intelligent animals other than humans, the first contenders are the dolphins and great apes. A less-obvious one may be birds of the family Corvidae, containing both crows and ravens. This was suggested when researchers at Oxford found crows are able to make specific tools, a feat never before seen in other animals.

More recently, ravens have been shown to direct other individuals' attention through gestural communication; the first time this has been seen outside of the primates. In primates, such gestures are rarely seen in the wild. Why wild ravens show this behaviour more commonly is unknown, but it is thought by some to be the foundation of language.

The Huffington Post reports on a 2012 calendar in the United Kingdom which features cats playing musical instruments. The images in the calendar, released by Maverick Arts, were created by digitally altering photographs of real pet cats.

An examination of the publisher's website reveals several other calendars along similar lines, with such titles as Maverick Meerkats, Ferrets Go Fishing, Water Skiing Westies, and Ballroom Bunnies.

Experts from Wolong National Nature Reserve believe interaction with researchers in these goofy looking costumes may increase a panda cub’s chance of survival once introduced to the wild.

"Well, it's funny looking but hey, whatever works!" said one employee when asked of the outfits.

In 2006, the research team introduced a captive-born male cub into the wild, only to have it tragically rejected and killed by its free-roaming brethren, according to the Washington Post.

Looking to stock up on presents for the holidays? Several furry retailers are participating in 'Cyber Monday', including Rabbit Valley (15% off $100 or more, in-stock only, to Dec. 1, code 'Cyber2011'), FurPlanet (15% off everything, 'FOXES') and FetishZone (NSFW; up to 50% off).

Bad Dragon had (NSFW) 40% off black, medium-firm toys for Black Friday, but sold out; a 10% global discount remains in effect for the next ten hours. [scottbob3/reddit]

FurBuy site owner Jurann today announced a change in site leadership, having previously indicated his intention to resign from public-facing activities.

The new community manager, Mordrul, is to be responsible for leading and marketing FurBuy, as well as general administrative duties, while Jurann continues to handle feature requests.

Matthew Scully is an unusual proponent of animal rights, coming from the Christian-favoured, U.S. Republican party. Indeed, he speaks about people automatically assuming he is on the side of hunters and pig 'farmers' when, in fact, he has been a vegetarian for over 30 years.

While Scully does support animal rights, he makes that stand from a generally religious perspective, arguing that current treatment of animals is an abuse of god-given dominion, and disagreeing with the secular reasoning of animal rights proponents like Peter Singer.

Scully's ability is shown when coming to the main thrust of his book, where he writes about animals, how they are treated and how they should be treated. He is an excellent writer (a former speechwriter for then-president George W. Bush), and a dutiful investigator, travelling to most of the places about which he writes.

It will be a five-nominee year for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. 18 films were sent in for a chance at nomination for the award, and all were accepted. The motion-capture debate seems to have been for naught; all three films under question were accepted, though only one is a contender.

It all started with Buffy, the Vampire Slayer in 1992. Or did it? It presumably took a few years for the popularity of the movie, the 1997 Buffy TV series, its spinoff Angel, and all of their authorized merchandising calendars, CD soundtracks, cell phones, clothing, comic books, etc., to reach pop culture critical mass.

In 2007, I was asked to review the first four paperback novels in a series about Kitty Norville, a midnight radio talk hostess who is also a werewolf; and the various handsome vampires, werewolves, sorcerers, and “normal” human assassins [!] who come into her life.

This was my introduction to the paranormal romance genre. It seemed like around 2005, every paperback publishing company had started an annual series by a female author about a mid- or late-twenties woman who gets involved with sexy male supernaturals, usually vampires. Undead and Unwed; Tall, Dark & Dead; Bitten & Smitten; Love Bites; Sex and the Single Vampire; Magic and the Modern Girl, and How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire are some typical titles.

A couple of years ago, the paranormal romance spread to novels for adolescent girls. The difference is that the protagonists are teenagers or young-twenties with raging hormones, who either are or get involved with shapeshifters who turn into superficially ferocious but really gentle (to them) fuzzy animals. Cases in point: the Kindle-published Serengeti Shifters series, by Vivi Andrews, featuring hot young lion shapeshifters (“Warning: This book contains sizzling heat, adult language, no-holds-barred cat fights, and hot shifter lovin’ with an alpha male who takes inspired leadership all the way to the bedroom.” -- four novels so far), and the Granite Lake Wolves, by Vivian Arend, starring lusty young werewolves (also four books).

The brand-new Tiger’s Curse series of four novels, by Colleen Houck, is unique only in that it is more demure than most, and is designed to conclude in the last novel rather than being open-ended.

Tiger’s Curse (January 2011, hardcover $17.95 (402 [+ 31] pages); audio CD $18.24)
Tiger’s Quest (June 2011, hardcover $17.95 (479 [+ 5] pages), audio CD $18.99)
Covers by Katrina Damkoehler; art by Cliff Nielsen. NYC, Sterling Publishing Co./Splinter.

SoFurry lost its custom chat last weekend after a key developer responded to a ban by filing a copyright-based takedown demand. [Conan/vivisector]

Site leader Toumal responded with assurances that a new chat module would be provided, and made a call for donations. A temporary chat has since been implemented.