Barrington Couple Chairs ARKive, National Conservation Event

In celebration of its 10th anniversary as Nature’s Media Vault, ARKive, a national not-for-profit organization, is coming to Chicago to increase conservation impact of the natural world including hundreds of threatened species in Illinois.

On Monday, May 20, ARKive will hold its second annual “Fill the ARK in Illinois” Chicago gala at the Racquet Club of Chicago, 1365 N. Dearborn Parkway, Chicago. Dr. Sylvia Earle, a renowned oceanographer and aquanaut named Time magazine’s first “Hero for the Planet,” and Kathy Moran, senior editor at National Geographic magazine, will be the special guests and keynote speakers. “Fill the ARK in Illinois” is being chaired by Cindy and Chris Galvin and Sue and Terry Graunke and host committee members include Virginia and Norm Bobins, Dana and Dan Dumezich, John Hanke (founder of Google Earth), Josephine Louis, Judy and John McCarthy, Larry O’Reilly, Mayari Pritzker and Kim Louis Stewart.

ARKive has built a vast, unique and dynamic treasury of global wildlife media—film, photography and biological fact files. ARKive is looking for support to profile species in Illinois and create free educational resources. There are 5,268 mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and plants unique to the Land of Lincoln. Roughly 1,536 of these are classified as threatened species; ARKive’s objective is to profile the 268 remaining threatened species in Illinois, which include the ring-necked duck and the white-winged scoter.

“We’re thrilled to help spread the mission of ARKive—a true leader in the global conservancy effort—to people throughout Illinois,” says Cindy Galvin. “By sharing all that we have, we help to empower schools, teachers, families, students and everyone else to better understand, value and protect our extraordinary natural world.”

The organization also seeks to connect and create ARKive education programs which align with state and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics standards for use by the 6,539 public, private and charter schools in Illinois, free-of-charge.

Dr. Sylvia Earle has led more than 100 expeditions worldwide involving in excess of 7,000 hours underwater in connection with her research. An expert on the impact of oil spills, she led several research trips during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 to determine environmental damage caused by Iraq's destruction of Kuwaiti oil wells. Dr. Earle is also a National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence.

Kathy Moran is a senior editor and 30-year veteran at National Geographic. She is a founding member of the International League of Conservation photographers and serves on its Executive Committee. Moran also managed the Africa Megatransect project, an award-winning National Geographic-Wildlife Conservation Society collaboration which led to the creation of Gabon’s national park system and protection of more than 10 percent of that county’s land.

All proceeds from “Fill the ARK in Illinois” will benefit ARKive, an initiative by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Wildscreen USA. To purchase tickets to the event, email lisa@lwcoinc.com; subject: “Fill the ARK in Illinois” or call 630-752-9661.

About ARKive

ARKive is a unique global initiative gathering the highest quality moving and still images of the world's species into one centralized digital library. ARKive's mission is to share and use this powerful media collection online to increase the impact of global conservation. ARKive is freely available to all at www.ARKive.org. 

Submitted by ARKive.