Are you ready to unleash your inner geek and become a citizen scientist for a day? Fort Vancouver National Historic Site (NHS) will be hosting a Centennial BioBlitz – a treasure hunt to discover living organisms – May 20 and 21, 2016. National park rangers, accompanied by local scientists, will lead volunteers of all ages and backgrounds as citizen scientists for a day. Teams will develop a “snapshot” of biological information in the park by counting and identifying plant and animal species using the iNaturalist app, cameras, and field guides.
The BioBlitz will kick off on Friday, May 20, at 7 pm in the Tex Rankin Theater at Pearson Air Museum (1115 East 5th Street, Vancouver, WA 98661). Award-winning author Jack Nisbet will present “I Do Not Go Alone”: Natural History Forays from Fort Vancouver. Spokane-based teacher and naturalist Jack Nisbet is the author of several books that explore the human and natural history of the Intermountain West. The lecture will be followed by an evening survey of bats and insects in the Fort Vancouver Garden and along the Spruce Mill Trail at 8:00 pm.
On Saturday, May 21 from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm, BioBlitz headquarters will be located at the Historic Hangar at Pearson Air Museum, where visitors can learn how to become citizen scientists for the day. Inside the hangar, a festival will feature family-friendly exhibits and activities. From the Historic Hangar, expert scientists will lead their teams into the field, where they will document plants, insects, and birds. This data will be sent to the site of the national BioBlitz event in Washington DC, where it will be broadcast on the National Mall with data from other participating national parks.
Pre-registration for the BioBlitz inventories and events is strongly recommended. Participants can obtain free tickets to all inventories and events, as well as view a full schedule of the day’s inventories, on the event’s Eventbrite page: Fort Vancouver National Historic Site BioBlitz Inventories.
For those who cannot sign up online, there will be experts available at the BioBlitz festival on May 21 to assist in free-form inventories and to help with the use of the iNaturalist app.
For more information, visit Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
