NPS Digest - Volunteers Gather 665 Species Around Gateway’s Jamaica Bay (NPS Digest)

Volunteers Gather 665 Species Around Gateway’s Jamaica Bay (NPS Digest)

At midday Friday, September 7, an eager crowd of scientists, amateur naturalists, students and volunteers gathered at Gateway National Recreation Area’s Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge for the start of the first ever Jamaica Bay BioBlitz. Organized as a partnership between the National Park Service and Queens College (CUNY), the program was designed to collect and analyze as many species as possible over a 24 hour period. Field teams had specifically been instructed to explore less studied areas, such as Fort Tilden and Floyd Bennett Field, in order to expand the already extensive list of species known to exist in the park.

As survey teams returned from the field they congregated in the Refuge’s conference room which had been transformed into a temporary research laboratory. There scientists and volunteers huddled over microscopes and scoured field guides as they worked to identify the more obscure specimens.

Throughout the event ranger-led programs provided opportunities to learn about the natural history of species found in the Jamaica Bay area. At the Refuge base camp displays put together by the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the New York Aquarium, and the Queens Botanical Garden provided interactive activities with live animals and biofacts. A lunchtime workshop on nature sketching by a scientific book illustrator was a special treat for those wanting to create their own field notebook.

This first ever BioBlitz for Jamaica Bay was envisioned by the Jamaica Bay Institute of Gateway National Recreation Area and co-organized in partnership with research faculty in the sciences at Queens College. One of these researchers, Dr. John Waldman, discovered that the numerically dominant fish in the east and west ponds at the Refuge, which had long been considered to be the Atlantic silverside, Menidia menidia - the same as the dominant species in Jamaica Bay's marine waters – was M. beryllia, a very similar but different tidewater species.

By the end of the 24 hour effort 273 volunteers had enthusiastically stepped into hip waders, wielded an insect or fish net, raised binoculars, or looked through a hand lens as part of the intensive effort to gather information about the extent of the park’s biological diversity. At the closing ceremonies a tired, but still very excited crowd cheered when the final tally of 665 species was announced.

Contact Information
Name: Nancy Khan
Phone Number: 718-338-3338 x 223
Email: nancy_khan@nps.gov