The Corey Helford Gallery, in Culver City, California, is to play host to an exhibition by painter Josh Agle, also known as "Shag".

Entitled Animal Kingdom, the exhibition will display a number of Agle's paintings, created in his distinctive retro style. Each features one or more characters dressed as animals, including feline women, equine men, a boy dressed as a lamb, and men sporting antlers.

Agle found inspiration in the furry subculture and anime fandom:

I love looking into subcultures. [...] I love that people throw themselves into it wholeheartedly

Agle was particularly inspired by fursuiters, the subset of the furry fandom which dresses up in costumes, and intrigued by the notion that "people are 'hooking up' in costume at furry conventions":

In my paintings, I always try to reference our connection to our prehistoric selves as human beings. Since we're descended from earlier mammals, maybe these people are more in touch with their primal being.

Animal Kingdom's initial reception is scheduled for February 11; the show ends on the 29^th.

Nat Geo sees fursuiting as a fit subject for Taboo, according to this three-minute preview:

The program spins furries as "people who enjoy wearing animal costumes in their adult life", calling the behaviour "bizarre", and quoting regular media commentator Dr. Sudeepta Varma:

Furries can be considered greatly taboo because we look at people dressing up in furry costumes as child's play, and it's something that should have been left in the past, and not brought into adulthood.

Update (24 Dec): The episode is to air January 3 at 9PM Eastern, and again at midnight. [cloudchaser_s/furrymedia]

One fursuiter profiled on the show is Nuka (Courtney Plante), a social psychology graduate student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

The Honey Cooler (first covered in March) is described by one of its producers as:

... a farce-noir film starring local celebrity Sid Pink. Sid is a down-on-his-luck private investigator that gets caught up in a world of burlesque dancers, luche libre wrestlers and people who like to do each other in animal costumes.

Now new photos [Syhusky/DFB] and video clips have emerged suggesting that the movie, which has now wrapped up shooting, really isn't as bad as it first appeared. It's worse.

Chicago radio station WBEZ's Jason Marck and Eilee Heikenen-Weiss today broadcast their experience of MFF 2011 on morning program Eight Forty-Eight. [tip: Iggy & Idlewild]

The eight-minute segment focused on the motivations for fursuiting, and featured interviews with Woody, Atara, Ford Shepherd and convention chair Takaza J. Wolf. Other topics included whether furry was a fetish, and the convention charity, which left with over $18,500 (video).

So a huge part of it is this kind of kid-like, unbridled joy. [...] The whole thing felt like good clean fun ... there's an overall air of [...] innocence, inclusiveness, belonging ...

Jason said he found the fandom by accident, stumbling across WikiFur while looking up Japanese comic books. MFF attracted 2600 fans this year, including 574 parade fursuiters.

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.

Researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University have combined non-contact motion detection with animatronics to build a fursuit head which reacts to a performer's facial movements.

The technology, exhibited at the 19th International Collegiate Virtual Reality Contest, allows the wearer to control the eyes and mouth; ear and eyebrow control is planned. [scottbob3]

The 12th Meerkat Manor dance and Disneyland Paris Halloween 2011 trip, organized by Timduru, took place last weekend. The latter had 60 planned attendees from nine countries.

The fursuiters were reportedly asked to leave the park for 30 minutes after stealing the show from the Disney character performers. [video: Djem; tip: Pegla]

See more: Video and photos and reports from prior Halloween trips.

I wasn’t as proactive as I thought I would be, and I’m pretty sure I missed a couple posted during the first of September, so apologies there. Otherwise, here was last month’s Newsbytes.

Hot Topic, a teen-oriented franchise, is well known for buying its stock based on the current fashion trends of its target audience.

Lately, however, the products have become more and more "furry". From animal "spirit hoods" to coats with tails attached, even going so far as to selling a wolf costume in time for Halloween, it's certainly becoming something of interest to furries, even if Hot Topic is unaware of it.

Perhaps this is an essential time for furries that wish to become more public; after all, if there are already young pseudo-fursuiters traversing the streets, perhaps they will find enjoyment, welcomed into a community that has been costuming long before they thought it would be fun to wear a tail.

Bucktown Tiger's fans, who go by the name of Shopwreckers, have reason to celebrate. The piano-playing fursuiter has become the first feline to win the Fandom's Favorite Fursuit Fracas, vanquishing opponent Twitch Da Woof in one of the most highly contested finals the competition has witnessed. Both furry musicians were underdogs in their own right, and neither were expected to make it as far as they did.

FurPlanet is pleased to announce that we'll be distributing the new movie, Bitter Lake, to the U.S. market. If you have not heard about it, please check out the trailer and their website.

Bitter Lake – an EZwolf and Shay co-production – recently premiered at Eurofurence, and the screening was a smash hit. Everyone at FurPlanet is excited about the movie; we couldn't be happier about helping to bring it to furry conventions across the U.S., and to FurPlanet.com.

More information and an order page will come soon. We estimate the DVDs will be in stock by late September, so keep your eyes on this space for more info when the time comes!

Humphrey B. Bear, a character familiar to generations of Australians, is up for sale. The mute brown bear, with his waistcoat, straw boater and yellow bowtie, first appeared on Australian television in 1965, and entertained pre-schoolers for decades.

Over the years, the show Here's Humphrey won several Logie Awards, and Humphrey appeared on PBS in the United States. He was also given a special "Citizen of the Year" Award at the 1994 Australia Day celebrations.

In 2009, however, Banksia Productions - which owns rights to the character - went into liquidation, and they're looking for buyers for Humphrey. The winning bidder will get four Humphrey B. Bear costumes, plus all intellectual property rights (including 1776 taped episodes of Here's Humphrey).

Bitter Lake, the Fursuit feature that was announced as premiering at this year's Eurofurence (and which has done so to generally favorable reviews) was also made available there on a region-free DVD, making it theoretically available for purchase by all Furry fans.

Where the DVD may be purchased outside of Eurofurence's dealers' den is not yet known, but it is said to include behind-the-scenes footage and English, German and French subtitles.

Reuters has published a short video from last weekend's Eurofurence, focused on fursuiters.

The segment includes a clip from Sesame Street's Jim Martin (this year's guest of honour), who explained furry fandom as an expression of animal spirit, saying that "a lot of us grew up with cartoons, and comic books, and loving our pets."

One wolf emphasized the open-minded nature of the fandom, noting that "you can't run around in a giant dog costume without a good sense of humour."

The past few days have been very active with animal-related stories from around the world:

• An animal rights activist from Ukraine is protesting poor living conditions for zoo animals, living in the lions' den for five weeks to raise money for them.
• A pair of cougars have been shot after they began attacking humans in Alberta.
• Ukraine's government has vowed to end a sickening local tradition of animal abuse.
• An Idaho man is in hot water after prancing around in a bunny suit.
• A truck carrying bees has flipped and closed a major highway near Edmonton, Alberta.