Saturday, May 1, 10 am – Sunday, May 2, 10 am

Fort Worden State Park

The Port Townsend Marine Science Center will host the fourth annual, 24-hour BioBlitz at the Fort Worden State Park, starting on May 1st at 10:00 AM. Join the fun at a safe social distance, and record all living species within the park boundary from 10 AM Saturday to 10 AM Sunday. We will be using the iNaturalist app and website to help us as we venture out to all corners of the state park to find, photograph, and identify as many different species as we can. Any observation that you make during this time and upload to iNaturalist, will be automatically added to our BioBlitz.

The 24-hour BioBlitz begins at 10 AM, with a great low tide at 2:00 PM. It’s easy to participate, and everyone is welcome. PTMSC staff will be available to answer questions by the museum (note: not the aquarium) entrance from 10 AM to 4 PM on Saturday.

Get ready. Before May 1st, sign up for a free iNaturalist account on their website (https://www.inaturalist.org) or with the iNaturalist app. On May 1st, head to Fort Worden State Park and photograph any living thing (including plants, animals, fungi, and everything else) you encounter, then upload your observations to iNaturalist. You can take photos with your smartphone and upload them to the iNaturalist app, or with a camera and upload them to the iNaturalist website when you get home. All of the observations that you make in Fort Worden State Park during the BioBlitz will be automatically added to our iNatualist BioBlitz page (link coming soon!). Is species ID not your thing? Not to worry! All you need to do is take pictures of what you see and upload them to the iNaturalist site.

And to prepare for our 24-hour BioBlitz, or if you’re just interested in learning about the wide diversity of coastal life around us, check out our pier signs in the days before the event. Small signs will be placed on the Fort Worden pier from April 16th to May 2nd describing how to take part in our BioBlitz event, and highlighting the plants and animals that you may find when visiting Fort Worden State Park. This is a great chance to get outside with the family for some socially-distanced fun! RSVP for the event at http://bit.ly/PTMSC-BB2021.

If you are interested in participating remotely, you can just log into your iNaturalist account, and join PTMSC staff and volunteers to review observations and help identify species as they are uploaded. On iNaturalist, look for Port Townsend Marine Science Center BioBlitz 2021.

If you have any questions, please send them to the PTMSC Community Science Educator AmeriCorps Meghan-Grace Slocombe at mgslocombe@ptmsc.org.

A guide for getting started with iNaturalist is available at https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started

Helpful iNaturalist video tutorials are available at https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials

photo by Wendy Feltham