The first “Bio Blitz” on record happened in 1996 at an aquatic park in Washington, D.C. Since the first Bio Blitz the idea has spread around the world. Bio blitzes are intense periods of biological research in an attempt to record all the living organisms, including plants, animals, insects, fungi and mushrooms within a designated area. Usually groups of scientists, naturalists and volunteers conduct an intensive field study over a short, usually 24 hour time frame.

 

The bio blitzes organized by the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John have taken the idea of a period of intensive study to a whole other level. Instead of one day, they last for two weeks, and include not only legends from the science community, but graduate students, artists and committed amateur naturalists.

 

Since the time of Charles Darwin and his five year long bio blitz on HMS Beagle there has been a continuing effort to discover previously unknown species. So much work has been done that we assume that all the great age of discovery is behind us. In reality the reverse is true. There remains much about the world’s amazing variety of plants, animals, fungi and insects that is still unknown, uncharted, undocumented, and unfathomable in its complexity. In today’s world, threatened by environmental collapse and with more and more species arriving on the endangered lists, the bio blitzes are important and vital to know what we’ve got before its gone.

 

This feature length film (1 hour for CBC) follows a bioblitz as the scientists and their apprentices will take you on an amazing journey of what it's like to spend four weeks over two summers exploring all aspects of nature – fish, insects, plants, fungi, reptiles, amphibians and mammals - that live in the Grand Lake Protected Natural Area in New Brunswick, Canada.

 

Producer: Lloyd Salomone

Director/ Cinematography: Kent Martin

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Special Screenings at the United Nations

 

Watch:https://vimeo.com/205631957

Film Trailer: https://vimeo.com/goodhearted/review/164414865/282362ba5e​​

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Funding

Flower Power Production Inc. and:

Film New Brunswick

The New Brunswick Museum

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The ECHO Foundation