Our sixth annual bioblitz was held on June 17 and 18, 2005, in Bristol Rhode Island. RINHS, along with partners, Mount Hope Farm and Trust and Brown University’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology hosted this event at Mount Hope, in Bristol, RI. Over 100 scientists, naturlists, and volunteers came out and identified over 972 species.

Download the species list: Bioblitz 2005 Results

Together, Mount Hope Farm and Brown University own more than 500 contiguous acres that include a great range of interesting natural communities and habitats: working farmland, abandoned farmland in a variety of successional stages, mature hardwood forest, wetlands, and bedrock outcrops and upland. The land includes a mile of shoreline on Mount Hope Bay. The area for this BioBlitz was more or less coextensive with the former farm and estate owned during the first half of the 20th century by Rudolf F. Haffenreffer, businessman and brewery owner, and it has many interesting historical associations that will probably be reflected in the flora and fauna. During the Cold War, it housed a radar site for the Nike missile system, under Haffenreffer it was a dairy farm, and before that part of it was a Coney Island-style amusement park. Long ago, it was the home of colonial governors and of Wampanoag leader King Philip, who was killed there in 1676. The site is one of the largest undeveloped tracts in Bristol County, Rhode Island’s most densely populated county. The site faces north across Mt. Hope Bay towards the largest coal-burning power plant in the Northeast and much of the land has not been regularly open to the naturalist community.

102 Scientists and volunteers participated in Bioblitz 2005:

Photos from the Event:

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