iNaturalist BioBlitz
For this year’s BioBlitz, I explored a small natural area to the side of North Prospect Street.
The area I explored was overrun with invasive species, primarily Garlic Mustard and Buckthorn.
The area was also filled with a tree I was unable to identify. It was blossoming with a vibrant yellow color.
I encountered and logged four species for the BioBlitz. They were buckthorn, garlic mustard, the unknown tree, and an American Elm on campus. INaturalist made it easy to identify the majority of these and log them into my lab section’s datatbase.
Looking at the global challenge report, I was impressed with how many submissions were submitted. When I checked there were over 2,400,000 observations. I was most surprised that La Paz in Bolivia had the most submissions by a large margin. The second place was San Antonio which has over twice La Paz’s population. Overall, the global commitment to from thousands of people across the world was outstanding and sends a message that people care for the world even though our governments don’t.