A BioBlitz is a voluntary effort to count as many species of plants and animals as imaginable on a plot of express land over a 24-hour period.
Courtesy of Pierre Lacouture
In 2000, as David Gregg, then a Ph. D. student at Brown, was reading the Providence Journal over his fiancée’s shoulder, a small invitation caught his eye: The Rhode Island Natural History Survey was looking for volunteers to sign up for its first BioBlitz, a full-day animal and plant count at Roger Williams Park.
Gregg, a former “insect child” and still passionate about the herbal world, joins us in the blink of an eye.
“I spent the night counting the moths and beetles,” Gregg recalls. “I joined on the spot as a member. ” Now, as the NHS’s lead executive, Gregg is preparing for his BioBlitz with the organization.
A BioBlitz is a volunteer effort to count as many species of plants and animals as imaginable on an express terrain in 24 hours.
According to Gregg, those occasions gained popularity in the early 2000s. “And this small nonprofit in Rhode Island identified that (the BioBlitz) embodied many of the same concepts around which (it had) shaped,” he said.
While Gregg acknowledges that BioBlitzes are limited in the amount of clinical data they can collect, they serve as educational and network-building tools. BioBlitzes, he said, “are a clever concept because they just bring other people together so they can communicate. “
When deciding on the location of a BioBlitz, the NHS takes into account two main criteria: the land must be subject to some form of conservation and its host must be ‘energetic’.
According to Gregg, the BioBlitz benefits conservation efforts. Having so many people willing to enjoy preserved land “elevates the total (conservation) task for the entire community,” he said.
The concept of participating in BioBlitz as a team was proposed in 2008 when Gregg introduced BioBlitz as a policy through the WBRU sports radio show. But when the show’s maker taped the event, Gregg said he had to temporarily find a way to “do it. “It feels like a game. “
Suddenly, Gregg says, the BioBlitz has taken on a new structure: “Can last year’s butterfly record be beaten, and can the moth team beat the beetle team?According to Kira Stillwell, NHS programme manager, this addition has proven to bode well, as it has required more participation and coordination from participants and resulted in more powerful inventories.
Now, groups go beyond taxonomic categories and come with groups committed to art, art writing, and journaling. There are “a lot of tactics to get informed data about where we are, in addition to a list of species,” Gregg said.
In 2008, the NHS secured sponsorship of Roger Williams Park Zoo, giving the organisation greater investment and, as a result, the flexibility to explore new locations.
“The first BioBlitzes were held in places where there were nature centers and infrastructure built for us,” Gregg said. The investment allowed them to “rent a tent, tables, chairs, a generator (and) portable pots” and organize BioBlitzes in stalls “that had almost no support. “
The zoo continues to serve as the title sponsor of NHS BioBlitz. The event’s project to link others and promote the network’s engagement with science largely aligns with the zoo’s goals, according to Lou Perrotti, the zoo’s director of conservation programs.
According to Gregg, the NHS event is “the longest-running annual BioBlitz in the world. “And while the project has grown in investment and structure, Stillwell said “what’s remarkable is what hasn’t changed. “
As the COVID-19 pandemic forced the NHS to make adjustments, the Research BioBlitz persevered.
In 2020, the event was scheduled to take place at Mercy Woods Reserve in Cumberland, but was postponed until fall 2021. “The pandemic has been an inconvenience that has forced us, the organizers, to rethink. . . We had an opportunity to make it happen, but we did it,” Dave Newton, director of the Cumberland Land Trust, wrote in an email to the Herald.
According to Newton, “about 120 scientists, naturalists and volunteers” participated in the occasion and learned about 800 species at Mercy Woods, which offers a “variety of habitats to inspect,” adding pine forests, grasslands and small wetlands.
“I still get goosebumps when I think about (that) wonderful moment and experience,” she wrote.
The BioBlitz’s 25th anniversary celebration will be held at a familiar venue: the Norman Bird Sanctuary in Middletown, home to Rhode Island’s second BioBlitz. The shrine will also celebrate its 75th anniversary.
“The sanctuary features local wildlife, provided environmental education systems on campus and in study halls throughout Rhode Island, hosted iconic events. . . and provided sanctuary and network to thousands of nature lovers around the world” since 1949, Anna Turner, a researcher and collections coordinator at the sanctuary, wrote in an email to The Herald.
“What’s really exciting about the BioBlitz held at the sanctuary is our varied habitats that are in a position to be explored: we have marshes, ponds, woodlands, meadows, dunes, ridges, fields, gardens and orchards,” Jolie Colby. the sanctuary’s director of education wrote in an email to The Herald.
Ahead of the fourth centennial celebration, which will take place on June 7 and 8, the sanctuary plans to host a “Spotlight on the BioBlitz” on Nov. 15 to introduce the program to participants.
In addition to offering an “up-to-date biodiversity stock that will inform the (sanctuary)’s land management,” the 25th anniversary birthday party will introduce the sanctuary “to a wider network of naturalists,” create “opportunities for intergenerational engagement,” and will offer meaningful encounters with nature: “a rare opportunity these days,” Colby wrote.
Gregg hopes to see more resources available for Rhode Island’s local wildlife conservation. For him, efforts like BioBlitz aim to build environmentally conscious communities.
“We have a very well-informed population,” he said. So if we could only take advantage of what they know, it would fill the void that state resources don’t fill. “
Julia Vaz is Metro’s editor-in-chief covering environment, crime and justice. She is a second-year student in political science and literary arts from Brazil.