Home >  Local News >  Neighborhoods

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

By Laura Pace, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Tim Pearce had a Eureka! moment at the last possible second.

	Chuck Tague of Mt. Washington, publisher of the Nature Observer News, holds aloft a screech owl during a demonstration, to the delight of Jacob Dale, 5, of Mt. Lebanon. (Andy Starnes, Post-Gazeette)

"Wait! One more snail!" he blissfully shouted from behind his microscope. Pearce, curator of mollusks at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, was one of 15 scientists searching under leaves, through dirt and around trees to find all the living things in Mt. Lebanon's Bird Park, a 40-acre park sandwiched between residential neighborhoods and Washington Road.

His discovery brought to 285 the number of species of animals, plants and insects collected in the park during the 24-hour BioBlitz, which kicked off at 3:30 p.m. Friday. The count grew by 10 on Monday when sponsors got additional figures from one early-bird scientist who arrived at the park at 4 a.m. to make frog calls. (The calls worked. He found spring peepers, a species of tiny frog.) But the scientist left before submitting his counts.

Mark Evans, president of Mt. Lebanon Nature Conservancy, which sponsored the blitz, said there were no shocking discoveries, but that scientists did find some things they did not expect to see.

Pearce identified 15 species of snails and slugs, seven of which are native to the area and the rest of which hitchhiked here from Europe, probably as eggs in the soil of potted plants, stuck to the soil of heavy machinery "or even in your lettuce," he said.

He was thrilled to find a punctum minutissimum, a minuscule (0.4-millimeter) snail. He believes the creature, whose English name is "small spot," is the smallest land snail in North America north of Mexico. Pearce said the snails are either new to Bird Park or scientists did not discover them before, because no record of them exists.

Scientists don't know a lot about snails because they haven't thoroughly studied them, Pearce said. "They're not cute. They're not fuzzy, and they don't have big eyes."

Other scientists discovered a cluster of ticks -- not dangerous deer ticks, Evans said -- hitching a ride on a crane fly. The sample of harmless ticks will be sent for analysis, since no one was sure of the kind of ticks.

Environmental impact consultant Christine Phillips tweezered through a Petrie dish full of scuds, a gammarus and crane fly larvae pulled from the small stream. An earlier collection yielded leeches (not the bloodsucking kind) and beetle larvae.

Invasive species of plants are taking over one side of the park, including 6-foot-tall Japanese knotweed and garlic mustard that's spreading quickly, Evans said.

Scientists identified the species using books and charts strewn about Bird Park's pavilion. During the waning hours of the blitz, scientists sat among microscopes, work lights, soda and chocolate sandwich cookies in the pavilion, a tarp protecting them from the blowing rain. The makeshift lab was filled with tables piled with canisters of spiders, tubes of worms and plants along each bench.

More than 45 students from Mt. Lebanon High School, including an AP environmental science class, volunteered and helped with collections and activities. Saturday morning events included raptor and bug shows and a native plant sale.

Friday's weather was beautiful, but Saturday's torrential rain put a damper on sample collection, Evans said. Insects weren't flying and other creatures, including spectators, lay low. But the event was not meant to be an official scientific inventory. "The primary goal is just to educate people. We're here to let the public know what's here," he said.

Data collected will be compared to a 1982 study of life at the park and documented so scientists can do another blitz in five to 10 years to see if the park remained healthy. "As you start losing species, you start losing important parts of the big picture of Earth," said Evans, a geologist.

Crews were especially thrilled to find salamanders. Once plentiful at the park, the creatures were virtually extinct during a salamander count in 1996. But the salamanders weren't difficult to find this time around.

	Verna A. McGinley, who runs Creative Environmental Education in Mt. Lebanon, displays endangered rain forest butterflies in an exhibit at Bioblitz in Bird Park Saturday. (Andy Starnes, Post-Gazeette)

Bird Park is heavily used but mostly undeveloped, with the exception of a soccer field on one tract. The park was named for Thomas A. Bird Jr., a Marine who was the first Mt. Lebanon resident killed in Vietnam. A memorial at the park says it was dedicated to Bird in 1967 and honors all Mt. Lebanon residents killed in Vietnam.

The blitz was the first at Bird Park, but environmental groups have done similar studies at Frick, Schenley, Riverview and Highland parks in recent years. Scientists have staged BioBlitzes in Wales and Switzerland, Evans said. "People are trying to understand the importance of biodiversity," he said.

Mt. Lebanon's data will be officially tallied, categorized and shared with municipal officials and representatives of LaQuatra Bonci, a planning firm currently working on a comprehensive study of Mt. Lebanon's parks.

"This is a first step," Evans said. "It's been successful, I think."