Bioblitz @ Great Smoky Mountains Association’s Members Weekend

Join us for the Great Smoky Mountains Association’s Members Weekend retreat to learn about local animals and plants while contributing to science. This year’s event will include a bioblitz in Great Smoky Mountains National Park at the Cosby Picnic area led by Discover Life in America!

What’s a bioblitz?

During a bioblitz, volunteers help document as many kinds of animals, plants and other organisms as we can find in a certain place. It’s also an opportunity for you to be a community scientist, gathering real scientific data, while also learning about the local flora and fauna living around you.

What will we be doing?

Walking the trails, looking for bugs, flowers, salamanders, and anything else we can find. We’ll photograph them with our phones and post pictures to our iNaturalist project. It’ll be a fun morning of outdoor time in a gorgeous natural space and we’ll have experts on hand to guide small groups around the trail and point out interesting facts about the organisms we see.

Afterward you can see what kind of organisms we found by visiting the Cosby Bioblitz project on iNaturalist, which will be left up indefinitely. We encourage you to revisit GSMNP and post what you find! Making iNaturalist observations helps TVA know what’s out there so they can better manage and protect these public lands.

Before the event

• Download iNaturalist to your phone (it’s free!)
• Follow prompts in the app to create an iNaturalist account
• Bring water and some snacks (we’ll also provide water)
• Wear weather-appropriate clothing and sturdy shoes for hiking