ARKive e-News, April 2006

Share your favourite ARKive photos and movies with friends or colleagues using MyARKive, the latest addition to www.arkive.org .

MyARKive lets you create and manage your own interactive scrapbook of photographs and movies, saving them for return visits and allowing you to share them with friends, colleagues or class mates.

This means teachers can now create their own interactive lesson resources, students and researchers can use it to build multi media species scrapbooks, and anyone with a love of wildlife can share their favourite ARKived species with others.

Signing up to MyARKive is simple, just enter your email address and a memorable password and you're ready to start! Once registered you will receive a confirmation email, which also contains details of how to download your exclusive ARKive screensavers.

This is the first of a regular feature to ARKive e-News in which we will be profiling our media donors, large and small. To begin, we are featuring the work of K (Kenneth, but known as K) Fletcher and Donna Baylis who are regular contributors to ARKive.

In 1981 two geologists met and discovered that they both enjoyed nature photography almost as much as they enjoyed analyzing mineral samples. This eventually led to their marriage and the beginning of Wildside Photography.

Twenty years later Donna and K have created an incredible library of more than 20,000 images from around the world, including images that are almost as rare as the species themselves - such as the Sumatran rhinoceros and the brief bloom of the Rafflesia.

K states that "ARKive is a perfect fit to Wildside's goal of documenting what remains of the world's endangered wildlife and wild places so that these images can be stored for posterity and viewed globally by conservationists, scientists and laypersons."

Their favourite images are those of the Sumatran rhinoceros taken in the wild on Boxing Day, 1982. They succeeded in seeing and photographing the Sumatran rhino at their first attempt despite having been told it was an impossible quest. This early success led to the concept of Wildside Photography and their goal to photograph endangered flora and fauna.

As with all our media donors we are extremely grateful for their support and enthusiasm for ARKive. You can find a selection of their images by visiting a special ARKive 'Wildside Photography scrapbook '.


K and Donna can be contacted at:
Wildside Photography
Email: kfletcher@wildsidephotography.ca
Website: http://www.wildsidephotography.ca

In recognition of 100 years of wildlife filmmaking, Wildscreen is creating the world's first centralised collection of films and information documenting the history and heritage of wildlife filmmaking. The collection will be open to the public with web access to the film database and library.

Launching in 2007 to mark the centenary of the first British wildlife film produced with a narrative story, it will bring together 100 years of filmmaking with oral histories, printed materials and the films themselves. Some of the earliest films need restoration to ensure their future survival, whilst others just need a safe home. If you would like to get involved the project needs your help!

Help us to create a definitive database of films:

- Contact us if you have or know about the location of any old wildlife films.
- Tell us what your favourite wildlife programs are and what you would like to see included in the collection.
- Donate old materials you may have, whether historical books, articles or photographs covering the history of wildlife filmmaking.
- Register your interest so we can keep you informed about the project.

If you would like to get involved - the project needs your help!

For further information contact: Derek Kilkenny-Blake, Project Curator

Derek.Kilkenny-Blake@wildscreen.org.uk or +44 (0)117 915 7109

We are always open to suggestions of endangered species that should be included in ARKive. If you have media, or know of its existence, for an endangered species that we have not yet covered, or can add to the collections already in ARKive, then please do let us know. You can contact the ARKive media team on: arkive@wildscreen.org.uk

To find out what the ARKive media research team are currently searching for view our MOST WANTED species list.