The proposed U.S. military expansion in Guam will destroy 71 acres of coral reef in the Apra Harbor to create room for nuclear aircraft carriers. This new website will give people a sense of the incredible marine treasure that is threatened by this expansion. Raise your voices to stop the military destruction of Guam!
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From: David Burdick
Date: Fri, May 28, 2010 at 4:26 PM
Subject: announcing guamreeflife.com
Hafa adai friends, colleagues!
First of all, apologies for the mass email – it’s not something I do that often. But I’m finally ready to unveil my little labor of love, guamreeflife.com (http://www.guamreeflife.com), and this seems to be the best to way to get the word out. Guamreeflife.com is a website dedicated to raising awareness of Guam’s marine biodiversity through the distribution of thousands of images of marine life from Guam and lots of information about Guam’s coral reefs. I’ve told quite a few people about it already, and it’s been getting a fair number of hits in recent months, but now that I’ve completed (or at least nearly completed) some important sections of the site I thought I’d make it official.
Filling the void
I developed the site after realizing how few images of Guam’s reefs are freely available for outreach/education and other non-commercial uses. I’ve taken thousands of photos of Guam’s reefs over the last several years, so all I needed was a vehicle to deliver the photos to end-users.
It’s been quite an undertaking, as it’s required processing and organizing thousands of images, not to mention trying to identify species of many different taxa. It also required a lot of tinkering with HTML code to figure out how to build the site. Which reminds, me…I apologize for how bulky and slow the site is. Any design suggestions are welcome. I’m hoping to streamline it in the near future so that those with slower internet connections can access it more easily. I’m also hoping to throw together a DVD so it can be distributed to places with really slow internet connections. And FYI…the site seems to work best with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. 95% of the site works with Internet Explorer, but for some reason the slideshows in the reef tour section don’t work with that browser.
Content
The meat and potatoes of the site is the images section, with images arranged two ways: 1) my favorite images arranged by general category (e.g., coral, fishes, etc.) for those who are interested simply in decent quality pictures of marine life, reefscapes, and reef stress and 2) by taxa for those interested in identifying marine species. In the “organism ID” section, you’ll notice that it’s heavy on corals and opistobranchs (i.e., nudibranchs and sea slugs), but I’m continuously beefing up the pages for other taxa. Also note that a list of recently added species will be added to the “organism ID” front page (http://www.guamreeflife.com/htm/identification.htm) so you can quickly see what new additions there have been since you’re last visit.
Another big part of the site is the “reef tour” section, where you can click on a map or browse a list of reef sites around Guam to view reefscapes from these sites. The idea is to give people a sense of what each of these sites looks like from a diver’s/snorkeler’s perspective, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. Some of you may be particularly interested in the photos from marine resource surveys of the reef area in Apra Harbor planned for dredging (http://www.guamreeflife.com/htm/reeftour/cvn_survey_sites.htm).
Here are a few of the site’s highlights:
– Over 9200 photos of more than 1500 marine species from Guam
– Over 3200 photos of more than 130 reef sites around Guam
– Lots of information about reef management and conservation on Guam
– Links to dozens of helpful websites
I’d also like to mention that while I haven’t yet incorporated Chamorro names for various reef life into the site, that is definitely is high on my list of things to do.
Photo use
For those interesting in using photos for more than just home use (e.g., desktop wallpaper, screensaver, etc.), all I ask is that you send me an email with a list of photos and what you intend to use them for. The intent is that they be used primarily for non-commercial use, mainly outreach and education activities, but I won’t rule out using photos for commercial activities. These images are copyrighted, so please do not use them without my express permission. I don’t want to have to say this, but I need to: I reserve the right to refuse requests.
Spread the word
I hope you all enjoy the site and pass word to anyone who you think might be interested. I’m particularly keen on getting this site into the hands of educators and students, so any help with that would be greatly appreciated. Also, please check back regularly, as I will be posting new images and new information – probably on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
Help out
I appreciate any input people can provide on the site, from design recommendations, help with species identification, and help to make the reef conservation section more informative and more accurate.
Along those lines, I have a special favor to ask of the professional and amateur taxonomists and naturalists: could you assist me in correctly identifying marine species with which you are most familiar? I did my best to take a first stab at identification, but I came up short on quite a few and am probably wrong on many others.
Thanks and enjoy!
Dave
David R. Burdick
Biologist/Coastal GIS Specialist
Guam Coastal Management Program
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