Wildlife Film Fest

[Mar 15]

Two Atlantic Coast films featured at Wildlife Film Fest

Wildlife along the wildlands of coastal Ireland and New Jersey’s Delaware Bay will be the focus of the International Wildlife Film Festival Tour on Friday, March 15 at the Civic Center in Ukiah, 300 Seminary Avenue. Doors will open at 6:15 p.m. with snacks and live music by Sheridan Malone. Films begin at 7. Tickets are available at Mendocino Book Company or at the door for a suggested donation of $10 for adults and $5 for children.

In the stunning documentary "Wild Ireland: The Edge of the World,” (60 min.) Emmy-Award-winning wildlife cameraman Colin Stafford-Johnson takes viewers on an odyssey along Ireland’s rugged Atlantic coast featuring the creatures and places that make it so special. From the ancient ruins and wildlife of the Skellig Rocks — stormbound ocean pinnacles off the country's southwestern corner — to Clew Bay, an iconic inlet halfway up the west coast, Stafford-Johnson provides a spectacular journey.

“Birds of May” (28 min.) explores the challenges faced by Calidris canutus rufa, a Northern sandpiper otherwise known as the red knot, when it arrives on the sandy beaches of Delaware Bay in New Jersey. The red knot has one of the longest migrations in the animal kingdom, an epic journey of 19,000 miles per year, from the southern tip of South America to the northernmost reaches of the Arctic where the species nests. Delaware Bay provides a refueling stop where red knots gobble down the fat-rich horseshoe crab eggs that coat the shore. Increasing demand for oysters is inspiring entrepreneurs to farm them in Delaware Bay; conservationists worry about the potential problems this may create for these threatened shorebirds. Wildlife biologist Larry Niles of the Delaware Bay Shorebird Project

Comments: "You start to see how interconnected the globe is and to be captured by the elegance of it, the complexity, the beauty … it just compels you to want to do something to protect it."

This film series benefits the Redwood Valley Outdoor Education Project (RVOEP), a special program of the Ukiah Unified School District serving over 2,000 students each year. To learn more about the RVOEP and see a full film schedule visit rvoep.org. For further information contact Maureen Taylor, RVOEP Education Coordinator, at 707-489-0227.