Band holds ‘Bio Blitz’

Despite the threat of rain, more than 30 people turned out for the inaugural Rainy River First Nation “Bio Blitz” yesterday at the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre.
The blitz was centred around the roundhouse at the base of the Long Saulte rapids. People were split up into groups, headed by local naturalists, and sent out to look for different types of flora and fauna.
Monica Guzkowski, assistant coordinator for the band’s Rainy River watershed project, called the event a “big species scavenger hunt.”
“It’s a great opportunity for specialists to share knowledge and for the public to learn,” Guzkowski said, adding there’s also a fair bit of fun in the exercise.
Each group “scavenged” along the riverbank, cataloguing different species for about 45 minutes. They would then bring back what they found to the diversity table, switch groups, and go back out again for another search.
Terry Pickard, another of the band’s biologists, led a group of students in search for water bugs and fish along with project coordinator Jennifer Mercer.
Pickard has done several of these types of expeditions in the past few years. He said he still hasn’t grown tired of them.
“I love it,” Pickard said. “[The kids] are just not aware of all the organisms in the water. There’s a lot of amazement.”
Yesterday’s event was part of the “Great Canadian Bio Blitz,” which is sponsored by the Canadian Bio Diversity Institute out of Ottawa.
The institute helped supply the band with kits to do the surveys, Guzkowski said. In return, the institute keeps the data collected from this year’s blitz and all those in the future.
“Hopefully it will grow,” Guzkowski said, noting plans already are to hold another blitz next year.
A series of blitzes will help give a more “complete picture” of species life along the Rainy River, she said, and can be used later as a sort of bench mark to see how the ecosystem is changing.
The project got great praise from Eric and Karen Nelson, who are members of the Rainy Lake Conservancy. Eric Nelson noted bio-diversity is one of the things the conservancy is looking at this year.
“I think it’s just wonderful to have a group and sponsor an event to pull kids together [out here],” he said. “None of us spend near enough time in our environment.
“If we don’t understand it, we won’t know how to treat it.”