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973/353-5263, Carla Capizzi, or capizzi@rutgers.edu

The urban campus of Rutgers University, is home to about 12,000 students and several thousand faculty and staff. But the humans aren’t the only inhabitants. The campus is a unique urban wilderness habitat, a hotspot for biodiversity; more than 130 bird species and more than 100 wild plants already have been identified on campus.  Come Sept. 19, the campus hopes to find more by conducting a “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 Department of Biological Sciences, led by Dr. Claus Holzapfel, will swarm across the 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 hourly “field labs,” from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., on the Norman Samuels Plaza in front of John Cotton Dana Library.

WHEN: Wed., Sept. 19, 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 Sept. 19 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