A BioBlitz is a 24-hour intensive study that aims to document as many species as possible for a given area. Our goal was to find and identify as many plants, birds, mammals, invertebrates, fungi and more as we could during the event.
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| Pacific blood star (photo by Wendy Feltham) |
All of this was made possible with the use of iNaturalist. iNaturalist is a social network for naturalists, and it allows its users to document and upload sightings of any living thing that they encounter in the wild. Anyone can click on these observations to view photos as well as see where and when it was observed. Other users can also suggest identifications, which is very helpful when the person uploading the observation doesn’t recognize what they saw.
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| Rockweed (photo by Wendy Feltham) |
Using the iNaturalist mobile app, volunteers photographed, identified and uploaded every living organism they encountered in Fort Worden to our iNaturalist project page, which is available for anyone to view online here.
All members of the public were welcome to attend. This year we had 22 participants, many of which were local students from Port Townsend High School. It was wonderful to have them all become engaged in citizen science and discover more about the organisms that live in their local area.
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| A purple shore crab observed by Port Townsend High School students (photo by Claudia Garfias) |
In total, our participants made 344 observations of 150 different species. Of those 150 species, the three most common groups were plants (62 species), birds (22 species), and mollusks (20 species). The information that we gathered during the BioBlitz will be especially useful to visitors of Fort Worden State Park, as it will give them an idea of what organisms they are likely to find during their visit.
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| A map displaying all of the observations made during the BioBlitz |
Many of the organisms that were observed during the BioBlitz have yet to be identified. If you would like to help us identify these species, or simply get started on making your own observations, go to https://www.inaturalist.org/ to sign-up for a free account.
Written by Michael Siddel, Citizen Science Educator AmeriCorps Member
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