Central Park BioBlitz June 27-28 2003

Central Park BioBlitz June 27-28 2003

On the podium is Richard C. Wiese, President, The Explorers Club. Seated from Left to right are: Adrian Benepe, NYC Dept. of Parks & Recreation Commissioner, Regina Peruggi, President, Central Park Conservancy, Michael J. Novacek, Senior VP, American Museum of Natural History, John Rowden, Curator, Central Park Zoo and E.J. McAdams, Exec. Director, NYC Audubon Society

Back in biblical times, Noah made the first cataloging of biodiversity when he collected all living things two by two. Charles Darwin also comes to mind for his many years studying life in many places including the Galapagos Islands.

On June 27, 2003 an army of scientists and volunteers came together for the first comprehensive biodiversity study of New York's Central Park. This study coincides with the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Central Park. This 24 hour marathon of scientific study will have people blanketing the 843 acre park using Tablet PCs to keep a precise records of their findings.

A group of volunteer developers from Microsoft created the application being used during the study. It was developed in C# using SQL 2000 as the back-end. It took about a week to put together according to John O'Sullivan, a Services Executive from Microsoft who was also one many Microsoft employees giving their time to the effort. Tablet PCs from HP and Acer were provided. Taxonomic data was loaded into the application that allows the Tablet PC enabled teams to quickly pull up relevant information during the in-field sampling of data. They were encouraged to add handwritten notes of their observations notes into the application.

There seemed to be a buzz of excitement among the some of the scientists I spoke to regarding the Tablet PC technology and the potential for increased efficiency in data collection in the field.

Richard C. Wiese, President, The Explorers Club said that he was proud to have Microsoft involved with this project and that huge quantities of data would be collected with the use of Tablet PC technology.

Regina Peruggi, President, Central Park Conservancy said that the Conservancy is an advocate for biodiversity in the park and that the BioBlitz would catalog it. She predicted that there would be some exciting discoveries during the Bioblitz.

Michael J. Novacek, Senior VP, American Museum of Natural History said that the Museum was proud to be part of the first ever BioBlitz. There is still a lot of the the world to discover and it would be interesting to see what we can discover in our own backyard he continued.

Scientists in Botany, Ornithology, Herpetology, Entomology and Ichthyology just to name a few will be testing their skills and knowledge is this most famous of urban landscapes. Others will be diving in some of the 150 acres of water bodies to catalog aquatic life.

Naturalist Jim Fowler, underwater expert Dr. Sylvia Earle, and writer George Plimpton were also in attendance and would be participating in the event. A proclamation from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was read near the conclusion of the ceremonies.

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Volunteers signing up for the BioBlitz

Some of the Herpetology crew

The press conference

From left: Jim Fowler, Richard C. Wiese, Dr. Sylvia Earle

Author George Plimpton

One of the Tablet PC enabled teams

Special thanks to the Park Rangers of Central Park

Summer has finally arrived in The Big Apple. After a very cool and wet spring, Central Park is alive in all of it's glory.

Addition information can be found at the following websites:

Explorers Club                                        http://www.explorers.org
Central Park Conservancy                       http://www.centralparknyc.org
Central Park Zoo                                    http://www.wcs.org
Wildlife Trust                                          http://www.wildlifetrust.org
American Museum of Natural History      http://www.amnh.org
New York State Museum                       http://www.nysm.nysed.gov