Sun 9/21 @ 7am – 7pm
By John Benson
On the surface a get-together of biologists, naturalists, specialists, horticulturists, environmental scientists and permaculturists doesn’t seem like it would be a lot of fun for the general public; however, the special event called BioBlitz is promising all that and more.
Hosted by the New Agrarian Center and Green Triangle, BioBlitz finds all of the aforementioned scientists and more converging Sun 9/21 at George Jones Farm in Oberlin.
Cool Cleveland talked to Green Triangle Board Member and Biologist Lara Roketenetz about this unique outdoor event that seems perfect for The Big Bang Theory crowd.
Cool Cleveland: Let’s start with the most obvious question: what is a BioBlitz?
Lara Roketenetz: BioBlitz is a purposeful survey of a piece of property. This is actually the second one we’re doing for George Jones Farm, which is a 70-acre farm in Oberlin that is mixed use and is associated with Oberlin College. So it has agricultural, some livestock, natural construction buildings and ponds, and a forest garden: those kind of neat things. In April of 2013 we did a spring BioBlitz. It gets many people together to come out and use their expertise to help identify all of the different types of species on the property.
So in a nutshell, this is basically where educated folks explore the land and then tell the farm owner what is the best use of the property?
Yeah. And the cool thing about George Jones Farm is it’s already a mixed-use property and…education based. It’s part of the New Agrarian Center – the NAC – associated with City Fresh where they do the community-supported agriculture food shops throughout the city of Cleveland. So the cool thing about this property is that it’s a non-profit, so this kind of information can help them get grants and improve their biodiversity. They can target areas of invasive species they’d want to restore to a healthier habitat. They can find rare species this way. So it’s just all about kind of increasing their knowledge about the site they’re working on and trying to get as much information about it as they can. We’re holding it in the fall because we have different species in the fall than we do in the spring. There’s also different vegetation.
What did we learn from the 2013 spring BioBlitz?
We had 53 bird species that they found and about 100 different types of plants. There were also eight mammals, two reptiles, five amphibians, some insects, some fungus and some fish. So all in all we got all 200 different species cataloged on the property in the spring. It’s a really diverse site. They have woods on the property along with a marsh area. The marsh area surrounds a pond and they found a relatively elusive wetland bird called a sora that’s kind of a shy quiet bird that people don’t get to see very much of. It’s really just all about having baseline biodiversity data for this site so they can make good management decisions in the future.
OK, so who should think about attending the upcoming BioBlitz?
It’s hosted by the New Agrarian Center (The NAC) and Green Triangle, so there will be people from all of those organizations there but we put the ask-out to universities and to park districts. Hopefully what will end up happening is you get people in both a scientific field and also citizen scientists coming out. These are people who are so excited about bird watching they want to come out and get to explore this 70-acre property that they may not have known about. It gives people an opportunity to kind of stretch their identification skills or partner with somebody who is more of an expert, and to learn some things. It’s really for all skill levels.
Finally, if somebody has an outdoorsy family can they attend BioBlitz?
It’s for everybody. You can come out and partner for a hike. You can partner up with one of the biologists who will be onsite and walk around with them. You can play with insect nets and butterfly nets and catch stuff and bring it back and have somebody help you identify stuff. We bring field guides for Ohio so we have all of these books that are available for people to access. Kids love it. We had a bunch of kids last year. When we found a painted turtle that was smaller than a half dollar, the kids were just crazy about it. So it’s just a great opportunity to give people a chance to interact with things they might not get to in their daily life.
BioBlitz takes place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 21 at George Jones Farm, 44333 State Route 511 (just east of Oberlin). For more information, visit http://greentriangle.org/bioblitz.
Freelance writer John Benson spends most of his time writing for various papers throughout Northeast Ohio. When he’s not writing about music or entertainment, he can be found coaching his two boys in basketball, football and baseball or watching movies with his lovely wife, Maria.
Oberlin, OH 44074