BioBlitz @ Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge

Name: BioBlitz @ Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge
Start: 2021-09-11T09:00:00-04:00
End: 2021-09-11T13:00:00-04:00
Location: TNWR Headquarters and Visitor Center

September 11, 2021 @ 9:00 am – 1:00 pm

BioBlitz @ Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge

Join DLiA, the USFWS and the Tennessee Valley Authority for this free, family-friendly event where you can be a citizen scientist and learn about the natural wonders found at the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge near Springville, TN!

What will we do?

A BioBlitz is an effort to document all the plants, animals, and other lifeforms that live in a place. DLiA partners with TVA to conduct a series of fun and educational BioBlitzes that help us better understand all the biodiversity on public lands.

The goal of this event is to catalog as many species (plants, insects, birds, fungi, everything) as we can around the Visitor Center and Britton Ford Trail area of TNWR. When we find a new organism, we’ll document it by taking a photo (or recording a sound) with our smartphones and posting it to iNaturalist, a cool community science app.

We’ll have experts on-hand to lead participants and to talk about the biology of the organisms that we encounter. This is a fun and easy way to help gather real scientific data and to learn about all the cool creatures that live all around us!

Can’t make it to the event? We still need you help! You can contribute before and after the BioBlitz by making observations around the TNWR project area (or any of our other BioBlitz sites) in iNaturalist. Your observations will automatically be added to our iNaturalist project, helping us learn more about what species occur at this site, where they occur, and when they are active. It’s that easy! Thanks in advance!

Before the event

Download iNaturalist to your phone (it’s free!)
Follow prompts in the app to create an iNaturalist account
Bring a mask – participants will be required to wear masks at all times
Bring water and some snacks (we’ll also provide water to refill your water bottle)
Wear weather-appropriate clothing and sturdy shoes for hiking

Details

Timing: Saturday, September 11, 2021 from 8:00 AM to noon CT

NOTE: This event was rescheduled twice due to COVID, but we are hopeful that the September date will be a go. Previous dates were May 16, 2020 and May 22, 2021.

Location: We’ll focus our efforts around the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters and Visitor Center and the nearby Britton Ford Hiking Trail (east on Wildlife Dr), both within TNWR’s Big Sandy Unit.

WHERE TO MEET: Meet in the parking lot of the TNWR Headquarters and Visitor Center, located at 1371 Wildlife Drive, Springville, TN.

Meeting location (Google Maps)

Other things to know:

We’ll have extra masks if you need one but please bring your own if possible
Porta-potties will be provided on site
There will be some walking on paved and trail surfaces

Registration: This is a free event, but we do ask that you register using the button above.

Requirements: No experience necessary. Adults and children 10 and up are welcome to participate! Please download the iNaturalist app to your smart device beforehand and follow the prompts to create an iNaturalist account (App Store , Google Play ).

Have questions? Ask Todd: todd@dlia.org or (865) 430-4757