This last week I started work at Saguaro National Park (as a student biological technician) and was immediately thrown into preparations for the BioBlitz on Oct 21-22.
What is a BioBlitz, you say? It is an event sponsored by National Geographic and the National Park Service, together with Friends of Saguaro National Park and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum to involve the public in counting/identifying as many species in the park in a 24 hour period. During the 21-22 Saguaro had ~150 scientists signed up to lead public and student inventories (collecting/identifying things), 2000 students from around Tucson, and 1300 members of the public. This, of course, required a lot of planning, and I was lucky enough to avoid all but the last week!
I was put in charge of organizing a student inventory event with ~30 students and 3 researchers near the Madrona Ranger Station on the southern side of Saguaro National Park. This location is special, because access to it is only available via a 6 mile hike or direct access through private land, meaning that unless you feel like hiking a lot, you need to be a park employee or scientist to gain access to this area.
My week consisted of contacting researchers, volunteers, and teachers to make sure everyone knew what was going on, when and where they were meeting, and that shuttles were arranged to bring everyone to and from Madrona at the right times. Thursday afternoon I learned that the shuttles had been given the wrong departure time, and I had a last minute scramble of recontacting everyone to have them arrive 1/2 an hour earlier than previously told.
The other part of my week consisted of me being a personal assistant to one of the biologists, Dana, who was responsible for all of the researchers doing work in the Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park. She seemed relieved that I was there to help her out - I think I was mainly qualified because I already knew the organizational system of the computer network, can work Excel, and didn't already have massive amounts of responsibility.
Day 1 of the BioBlitz went really smooth on my end - I met up with two of my scientists early (5:30am!) and we went to the field site to set up. My volunteers were two excellent girls from the university who were totally responsible and competent - I was thrilled to have them. Both were PhD students, and had no problem taking on the tasks of signing the teachers/students in and making sure they left on the shuttle on time. Once in the field the students spent about and hour with each researcher - learning how to mist net for birds, watching the researcher catch dragonflies and butterflies and explain about each species caught, walking along the pools and streams of the area and talking about riparian areas, frogs, snakes, water bugs, and all things aquatic. One particular hilight was when our group found a red spotted toad, which I think was the only individual of that species found during the BioBlitz, bringing the amphibian total up to 3 species, instead of two. :) We had one "medical emergency" when a girl got stung by a wasp. I took her to the medical tent, where the EMTs there were thrilled to finally have something to do. One of them actually came up to me later and thanked me for bringing the girl over - I guess it says something that the biggest thing all day for the medical personnel was a bee sting.
Right around when the kids were getting hot and tired it was time to go home. I said goodbye to them all and stayed at Madrona for an extra two hours, hanging out with the site managers there while my butterfly and dragonfly guy spent time without the kids to hike around and identify additional species. It was a good time.
Day 2 of the BioBlitz also happened to be my birthday! I spent the morning leading a reptile walk with some members of the public and then drove over to the Tucson Mountain District to experience the big set-up they had there: science tent, booths, food, presentations. It was cool to see it all, as well as meet up with my coworkers/friends who had spent so much time getting this event off the ground.
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