Merck Forest & Farmland Center Biodiversity Project BioBlitz 2020 (second Annual!)

The Quest Begins Here

Saturday and Sunday, July 25th – 26th

Fun, easy, safe, and at your own pace.

by Tim Duclos, Conservation Manager

Join fellow naturalists of all experience levels at Merck Forest & Farmland Center for any or all of two days of exploration of everything natural on the nearly 3200 acres of forests, fields, and waters. From experts to novice, all curious minds are welcome. Participation is as easy as taking a photo and recording date, time, location and uploading to iNaturalist via the app or web. Adapting to the times, this year’s BioBlitz will take on a new form than last. We are expanding the effort to the whole weekend and expanding our focal area to the whole property, with special quests available for the taking. Quests, of varying levels of challenge, will set folks up with a task and a map to seek out what may be found- or yet to be found across the property; kind of like geocaching or playing Pokémon Go- but with real life organisms.

This event will be fun, easy, safe, and at your own pace. It will also be a shared experience, don’t you worry- a BioBlitz is about community after all! We will have live displays of findings at the Visitor Center, maps and status updates on quests, naturalists and Merck Forest staff on hand, and equipment available for borrow during the event, including: guide books, magnifying glasses, specimen jars (for photographing those hard to contain insects), bug nets, dip nets, buckets, moth light sheets, etc. We will also have disinfecting solutions on hand to keep all equipment clean.

Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) biologists and volunteers convene at Merck Forest for VCE’s annual Biothon this past May. Hundreds of species of plants and animals were documented on iNaturalist and eBird during this event in 2019.