EVENT RESCHEDULED: It’s Time Once Again To Count the Birds, Bees and Other Animal Species at Rutgers University-Newark

2014 BioBlitz Re-scheduled for Oct. 2 Due to Rainy Forecast; Public Is Welcome

The urban campus of Rutgers University-Newark is home to the most diverse student body of any national university in the U.S., but did you know it also is a hotspot of biodiversity? The campus is a true urban wilderness habitat; more than 140 bird species and more than 100 wild plants have been identified on campus.  Come Oct. 2, the campus hopes to find more by again conducting its annual “BioBlitz,” a sort of census to determine how many plant and animal species share the campus with the humans.

WHO:  A team of students and faculty from the Rutgers-Newark/New Jersey Institute of Technology Federated Department of Biological Sciences will swarm across the Rutgers campus to count how many different species of plants and animals live here.

 WHAT:  The BioBlitz will include special activities and experts who will answer questions at “field labs,” from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., on the Norman Samuels Plaza in front of John Cotton Dana Library.

WHEN: RESCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY, Oct. 2, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

WHERE: Throughout the campus and the Paul Robeson Campus Center, 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., at Rutgers University, Newark

BACKGROUND:  The Oct. 2 BioBlitz has three main goals:

• Help to raise awareness on campus of how nature actually lives here
• Help the campus evaluate the value of our urban wilderness and the success of our ongoing urban nature restoration efforts
• Involve the campus in the fun of looking for plants, insects, spiders, birds and others 

Media contact: Carla Capizzi, capizzi@rutgers.edu