SUU and Partners to host Cedar City BioBlitz Festival

Published: August 22, 2016 | Read Time: 2 minutes

Cedar City BioBlitz

The Dixie National Forest, Southwest Wildlife Foundation and Garth and Jerri Frehner Museum of Natural History at Southern Utah University with funding from National Geographic have partnered to host the first Cedar City BioBlitz at Cedar Canyon Nature Park August 26-27th. This free Community Event is packed full of fun activities for the whole family to enjoy.  Bring the family and enjoy a marshmallow roast, birds of prey program, identification walks, Pokemon Go walks, 5K fun run, raffle prizes, see live raptors, reptiles and amphibians.

What is a BioBlitz? Bio means life and Blitz means to do something quickly and intensively! This is a fun community event to survey animals and plant species found in a specific area to record biodiversity within a 24-hour period. All you need to do is take photos of the animals and plants you see and load them into the iNaturalist app on smart phones and tablets as the official record of observations for the day.  Awards will be given at the end the day to adult and youth for the most observation entries.

Friday August 26th:
5:45pm Welcome and Announcements
6:00pm Bird of Prey Program by Master Falconer Martin Tyner with animals ambassadors

7:00pm Campfire Concert featuring Wilhelm
9:00pm Astronomy, Moth and Bat program

Saturday August 27th:
7:30am BioBlitz Trivia 5K Fun Run Check-in ($10/participant-includes a swag bag)
8:30am BioBlitz Trivia 5K Fun Run Begins

8:30am-4:30 pm Activities held throughout the day: 

Free face painting, science tent, Forest Service interactive watershed table, Smokey Bear appearance, SUU animal ambassadors, bird house building, nature identification walks, Pokémon Go walks, raffle prizes and more! Several food trucks will be available at the Southwest Wildlife Foundation parking area.

4:30 pm Awards ceremony

Sponsors: National Geographic, Horizon House Mentors, Youth Volunteer Corp, Groovacious and The Groove Crew, Hunter Portable Toilets, The Print Shoppe, Rainbow Sign and Banner, Smith's, Ace Hardware, Domino’s Pizza, Sizzler, Pinewoods Resort, Healing Mountain Massage School, Utah Shakespeare Festival at the Beverley Center for the Arts, Aquatic Center, Bob Marley Music, House of Marley, Marley Coffee, Clayton Rippey and Martin Tyner Photography.

Directions to Canyon Park Southwest Wildlife Foundation Cedar City BioBlitz event:

1310 E Highway 14, Cedar City, UT 84720. Look for the Southwest Wildlife Foundation Sign and event signs. Also bike or walk the approximately 1.5 miles along Coal Creek trail to the event from Canyon Park West.

For additional information:

Dr. Jackie Grant, SUU at 435-865-8549 or email jacqualinegrant@suu.edu

Nicole Shafer, Southwest Wildlife Foundation 435-704-4046 

Cigi Burton, Dixie National Forest 435-865-3200.

Stay connected, visit the Dixie National Forest website at www.fs.usda.gov/dixie, like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/usfsdnf, and follow us on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/usfsdnf for the latest information.        


Contact Information:

435-586-5400
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