A stuffed leopard was stolen from the University of Missouri School of Natural Resources. The Leopard is valued at over $10,000. You can see the full story here.

MFM 2002 will be held August 30th – September 2nd, 2002 in Memphis Tennessee, at the Holiday Inn Select Memphis Airport.

Ruth and Rebecca Brown have 4,386 cats.

The identical twins from the Maple Glen section of Upper Dublin Township have fashioned thousands of tiny, detailed cats from clay.

They're not just ordinary kitties, either. They are cats in Confederate clothing. Union garb too, for that matter.

As Civil War buffs, the twins bring history to life by creating sweeping battle scenes and dioramas of dramatic moments, as interpreted with clay cats.

Full story and pictures at:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/intelligencerrecord/news/news_intell/1332513.htm

Jerry Beck's CARTOON RESEARCH website reports on "Ferretina", a theatrical animated musical feature in production from the A&A studio in Toronto. Beck says that it looks like it is designed to appeal to Furry fans, but that "this has the smell of impending doom about it". Read more about it on CARTOON RESEARCH.

The Seattle Times and our local NPR station report (scroll all the way to the bottom of the page), that a Pacific Ridley sea turtle is being treated with antibiotics at the Seattle Aquarium, after she washed ashore near the town of Ocean Shores. Ridley sea turtles normally don't venture this far north, and the cold water has exacerbated an injury. The turtle, which has been named "Arial," is expected to recover.

Aibo the robot dog now has a feline companion. Japan's Omron Corp., maker of Aibo, has added NeCoRo, a robotic cat, to their lineup. According to Omron officials, it can't walk, but "it does what is most important: purring contentedly when stroked, and otherwise giving cuddly emotional feedback to its owner with feline sounds and movements." There will be 5000 of the felines in the initial production run, which will cost 185,000 yen (about US$1530) and will only be available in Japan.

Click here for the story from Reuters/Yahoo!.

Greetings from the Faculty and Staff of Further Confusion University
(aka FC2002)!
We have some announcements and updates for you.

BBC Online reports on plans to create wilderness refuges for the Britain's red squirrel, whose numbers are threatened by deforestation and encroachment by the non-native grey squirrel. The article includes a couple of great photos of red squirrels.

There's still time for mail-in registration at Midwest Furfest.

"The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917", by Jonathan Clements & Helen McCarthy contains encyclopedia-type entries on almost all anime movies, TV series, and video titles. This includes all anime with talking animals, alien cat-girls, s-f with bioengineered intelligent animals, and funny animals.

Just what the world needs: a theatrical animated musical feature with funny animals about the sinking of the Titanic, in which everybody is rescued and lives happily ever after. I can hardly believe this is legitimate, but if it is a hoax somebody put a lot of work into it. Here is the summary at Jerry Beck's CARTOON RESEARCH website, which has a link to more details:

Defenders of Wildlife writes:

"October 14 - 20 marks National Wolf Awareness Week. This week is an important vehicle for dispelling misconceptions and educating the public about the role predators play in maintaining biological diversity.

From the Associated Press:
HELENA, Mont., Oct. 13 — A black bear cub that firefighters plucked from a charred tree last year was given a 50-50 chance of survival when his burned paws healed and he was released into the wild in February.




On Friday, officials of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks confirmed that a hunter had legally killed the bear.

As is our custom, Further Confusion's chairman will be stepping down after Further Confusion 2002. This custom keeps fresh ideas and fresh approaches coming into Further Confusion, gives more folks the opportunity to give their input and dedication toward its improvement, and lets people grow into more demanding roles.


That means we will need a new chairman. Toward that end, we are posting our annual invitation for bids to be submitted to AAE if you want to chair FC2003.

Thanks to the unscrupulous people at the Education Center, Inc. of Greensboro, NC, Mailbox Books is forced to change their name to "Rabbit Valley Books". According to Sean Rabbitt, although MB could win the case against them, it would be far too expensive a battle to fight.

Sean goes into full detail here.