What is a Bioblitz?

Bioblitz is a concept for promoting urban biodiversity and public awareness. It is designed as a scientific endeavour that is also an educational event, incorporates elements of a festival and above all is a celebration of local biodiversity. A Bioblitz aims to bring together scientists from a range of organisations and the general public, in a race against time to see how many species can be found and identified in a biological survey of an urban area or park over a 24 hour period. During a Bioblitz the public is invited and encouraged to observe the scientists' activities and to interact with them, and also to participate in other Bioblitz related activities that are presented by the involved organisations.

The World's First Marine Bioblitz!

While several terrestrial Bioblitzes have now taken place world wide including several in New Zealand, the Wellington Marine Bioblitz will be the world's first! Land based Bioblitzes have involved the collection and identification of species within a 24hr period. However, identification of species in the marine environment is in its very nature far more sensitive to weather interruptions and so the Marine Bioblitz is scheduled to take place over the whole month of October 2007, to account for this constraint.

The Marine Bioblitz has a variety of objectives;

• To increase public understanding of the diversity and fragility of life in the marine environment and the work of the scientific community within it,
• To raise awareness of the Kupe/Kevin Smith marine reserve,
• To bring the scientific and local communities together,
• Above all to have a really good fun and educational time!

During the Marine Bioblitz, there will be teams of taxonomists, scientists, divers and snorkelers working with members of the public to locate and identify as many species as possible in the defined area. The challenge is to record all species found and of course, to find some new ones!