Casual visitors and committed naturalists alike have always sensed that nature teems with life in Lenape Park, a 450-acre urban green space located in the municipalities of Cranford, Kenilworth, Springfield and Westfield in Union County, New Jersey. We confirmed that suspicion on 20-21 May 2005, when the first-ever New Jersey Bio-Blitz was held at the Park.
A Bio-Blitz is an effort to identify and record the different forms of life that can be found in a given location over a 24-hour period, with specialists looking for whatever grows, crawls, swims, flies or walks. The Lenape Bio-Blitz found a plethora of flora and fauna - 660 different species - ranging from mushrooms to oaks, from ants to coyotes, from butterflies to hawks.
In order to identify these species, a wide range of volunteers - professional scientists, amateur naturalists and members of the general public - scoured Lenape's fields, forests and wetlands beginning on the evening of 20 May and continuing through the following day. The goal was not only to identify as many living things as possible, but in the process raise public awareness of the incredible variety of life that can be found even in an urban park.
Click here to download the BioBlitz 2005 Results Brochure in .pdf format!
