Walden Pond Biodiversity Day
with Jay Po
Summer 2009
My brother Jay, a sophomore at Harvard, had the opportunity to participate as a student leader at Walden Pond's Biodiversity Day. The event, founded and directed by Dr. E. O. Wilson, 2-time Pulitzer prize winner and Professor of Entomology Emeritus at Harvard University, brought together researchers, scientists, educators, and volunteers from across New England to help conduct a comprehensive biological survey of Walden Pond and surrounding conservation lands.
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Professor E. O. Wilson and my brother, Jay Po |
The Mission
Biodiversity Day, founded by Professor Wilson and Peter Alden in 1998, is a single or multi-day biological survey that aims to identify and record every living species, from plants to animals to fungi, in a given locality. Jay, leading a team of volunteers, documented over 100 different species in the parks and conservation land surrounding Walden Pond.
Here're some pics of the survey:
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| Jay with an eastern garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) |
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| A family of northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon sipedon) basking in the sun |
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| A rare color morph of a red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) |
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| The regular color morph of the red-backed salamander |
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| An eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) |
After a full day of collecting, documenting, and recording a wide range of organisms, all the volunteers gathered at the Walden Woods Project's Thoreau Institute to celebrate Professor Wilson's 80th birthday. The celebration marked the end of another successful Biodiversity Day at Walden Pond.
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| Professor Wilson's birthday cake |
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