The Further Confusion staff has been working all year to keep with and
surpass our tradition of bringing live animals to our convention. To this
end, we have been contacting many organizations throughout the year. In
fact, negotiations between the hotel, some of the groups and us have
continued up to last weekend.

Alfie may be handsome, but his pale coat of off-white quills was causing him to slowly freeze to death. A rare genetic varient on the normal brown hedgehog, the blonde hedgehog is vulnerable to attacks from predators due to their conspicuous colour. Alfie had beat those odds only to find that his light coat couldn't keep in the heat he needed to hibernate. The hedgehog is doing well after being found by a 12 year old girl, and will most likely retire to an animal sanctuary where he'll have a long, and warm, life.

A recent meeting of Indian Wildlife Board, chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, set out a new comprehensive 14 year wildlife conservation plan. The new plan follows up on government admission of laxness in conservation in recent years.

Critics have pointed out that poaching is still rampant, even in national parks, and that people living in neighbouring areas to protected land still frequently use animals and trees from the parks.

The new Action Plan calls for law enforcement agencies to help prevent poaching, increased communication between Dehli and the states around India, an increase in education for locals living near parks, and plans for promoting ecotourism, among other things.

Tens of thousands of species call India their home, including tigers, snow leopards and elephants.

The Anthropomorphic Literature & Arts of the Year (Ursa Major) Awards

Final Ballot

This ballot will be given or mailed to all preregistering members of ConFurence 2002 between now and March 10, 2002 (the end of the PawPet MegaPlex con). While nominations were accepted from all fans, only this year's ConFurence members may vote on this final ballot. All ballots must be received by March 18, 2002, so that they may be tallied and the winners' names engraved on the trophies in time for presentation at ConFurence 2002, April 26 - 28, 2002.

For memberships in ConFurence 2002, see http://www.confurence.com/, or write to: ConFurence Group, P. O. Box 84721, San Diego, California 92138-4721.

Many readers of AFF will have read the strange case of lizards feeding themselves after their owner suddenly died, where typically large and carnivorous reptiles helped themselves to the dead owner after not being fed for a few days, but also this week was the case of a normally vegetarian iguana accidentally biting off the finger tip of it's 14 year old owner. Unlike the seven scavanging monitors, the 5 foot iguana was shot by the police.

From cartoonresearch.com/Hollywood Reporter:
Move over Scooby-Doo! Zorianna Kit reports in Hollywood Reporter (Jan. 17): "America's favorite rotund cat Garfield, his dull-witted canine cohort Odie and their perpetually single owner Jon Arbuckle are making their way to the big screen as a live-action/CGI feature. 20th Century Fox has optioned feature rights to "Garfield," the long-running comic strip that John Davis will produce through his Davis Entertainment.
"Toy Story" scribes Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow will write the script, which will focus on the sibling rivalry between Garfield and Odie. The feature will be live action, with a computer-generated Garfield. "Garfield," created by Jim Davis (no relation to John Davis), was first published in 1978. Over the years, the 27-pound orange- and black-striped cat became known for his laziness, wry remarks and love of lasagna."
No word yet on who will replace the distinctive voice of Lorenzo Music.

Furry fan Ch'marr has provided scans of an article in the London Financial times that features fursuiter Rapid T. Rabbit. Reviews of the article would be welcome, as I haven't read it.

The robotic pet has finally gotten... fuzzy. Necoro is the first robotic pet (a cat) with fur. Designed to resemble a real cat, it has moving ears, tail, eyes, mouth and limbs. It makes cat sounds. It has a cat like look. Essentially, it looks like someone brought a taxidermied cat to life. Oh well. Maybe model 2 will be an improvement in the realism department.

I have been threatening this for some time, and I finally did it. Flayrah.com is now running on PostNuke version .0.7. This is a fork of the previous software package we have been using, and there is quite a bit of difference, though a lot of it is not immediately obvious. You'll probably notice the slightly different look, and that the story editors are no longer attributed in story postings--we're still here, and all the stories submitted still have to go through us before they make it to the front page.

There are still quite a few rough edges left to be polished, but as I won't be able to work on them until Monday night, I felt it was important to get this out the door for some user testing. The site will be in flux for probably the next week. Please post any problems you find in the comments section. I'll have a couple more things to point out on Monday!

The FC 2002 artshow is sold out. You can check the details on the artshow page as well as find out how to get on a waiting list.

http://www.furtherconfusion.org/artshow.html

...tooth, that is. The six year old clouded leopard broke her tooth while chewing on a log, thus requiring a gold crown. Perhaps she's part beaver? Story from Reuters.

No, not that sort of stuffed animal. We're talking real stuffed animals. A New Zealand couple has 300 stuffed animals in their collection. They claim that their collection promotes conservation and a greater appreciation for animals.

Sure. Nothing says "conservation" like a stuffed polar bear in your living room...

When I saw Dreamworks had the new Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron was available for viewing on the Internet, I was thrilled. I had heard wonderful reviews of this stunning piece of film. But when I saw the OFFICIAL DREAMWORKS LINK lead not to part of their site, but to a FURRY site, I was stunned.
Can it be that Dreamworks is not only encouraging their fans, but embracing their desire to spead things about this film on their own sites?

Whoo hoo!

(Well, Gromit is furry, so I guess this fits under Furry News)



CNN reports that Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park has made a series of one-minute shorts centered on Gromit demonstrating Wallace's wacky inventions.

Today's SinFest by the ever mack-daddy Tatsuya Ishida seems to show that Tasu has done more than huddle over his drawing table, trying to get syndicated. Furs might be interested in the strip, not just for today's but for the recurring appearances of the dog and cat.