Children’s Forest BioBlitz 2016

 

Nola & Monadenia snail

Nola & Monadenia snail

FTCCIS sponsored the first ever Children’s Forest BioBlitz from noon April 16 to noon April 17, 2016. Cortes youth hosted the event, which was attended by just over 70 people; 35 youth & 20 accompanying parents camping overnight at Carrington Bay Park campsite, Saturday, April 16.

Participating naturalists included:
Frank Boas / retired UBC Bryologist
Conrad Dombrowski / Independent fungal studies
Purnima Govindarajulu / MOE Provincial Small Mammals Specialist & Herpetologist
Nancy & Ray Kendall and Peter Elliott/ CIMAS Bird International field staff
Liz Richardson/ Independent vascular plant studies
Max Thaysen/ Cortes Streamkeepers

The 2016 BioBlitz made significant contributions to faunal and floral lists for Cortes Island forestlands. Even more significant are the impressions left with the 35 Cortes youth who participated in the BioBlitz.

Walt Whitman wrote…

There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

To respectfully paraphrase Whitman’s subsequent lines…

The forest snail became part of this child,
And moss and white and red mushroom caps, and rough-skinned newts,
and the song of the Pacific wren,
And the flying squirrels and the forest’s glorious green colours,
and the cutthroat trout and the alligator lizard…

Sincere thanks to everyone who participated in this fabulously successful celebration of Cortes forestlands!

For more images of the BioBlitz, see the 2016 BioBlitz gallery.

 

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