Flushed with success, the Extinction Matters BioBlitzes are back – due to popular demand! The Bookend Trust and Kingborough Council are holding this year’s BioBlitz at Brown’s River Estuary. We hope that people from far and wide will join us – to see how many species we can find, identify and record there, with the help of numerous experts, from 10 am Friday 3rd November until 4 pm Saturday 4th November.

This site has a great range of ecosystems, so we should get heaps of species.

Last year, we particularly wanted to hold our BioBlitzes around Threatened Species Day. 7th September 2016 marked 80 years since the last known thylacine died at Beaumaris Zoo – part of the site of the first of our two BioBlitzes.

This year we’re doing it all in November, given how much more favourable early summer is for plants and insects. But the 2017 Threatened Species Day theme of ‘Every one has a part to play’ – which can relate both to species and people participating in citizen science – is an inspiration to start preparing for the BioBlitz during other activities on 7th September.

If you might like to share expertise, inspire others and/or help with the organisation of the BioBlitz, please get in touch with me on clare.hawkins[AT]utas.edu.au for more details.

If you’d like to join us on the day, keep an eye on the website and Facebook page. Over the coming weeks we’ll start to share details of all that we’re planning, and provide information on how to book into formal surveys.

Why do a BioBlitz? Some people argue that BioBlitzes aren’t really ‘science’. Each time you run a BioBlitz, you involve a different number of people with different levels of expertise, so it’s difficult to use the findings to see how things change over time at a site.

BioBlitzes do nonetheless provide new information on a site, which can help guide management and build on our overall understanding of the species discovered there. During the previous two Extinction Matters BioBlitzes, participants identified hundreds of species, recording them on the publicly accessible Natural Values Atlas and Atlas of Living Australia. Most of these species had never been recorded on the sites before (see the infographics below).

BioBlitzes are also a great opportunity to showcase the joy of finding, identifying and recording species (check out the buzz from last year’s video) – inspiring participants to contribute further to citizen science, and to discover more about the benefits and needs of the natural world around them.

We hope to see you there!

More information:

• A scientist’s view of the benefits of a BioBlitz, by the person who invented them, Sam Droege
• Australian Guide to Running a BioBlitz – the Extinction Matters BioBlitz organisers are eternally grateful to the authors of this wonderful guide