Maryland Biodiversity Project - Reflections
Bill Hubick
It’s hard to believe that almost ten years ago Bill and I were walking through Severn Run when we stumbled across a blooming Whorled Loosestrife. Coincidentally, that one plant totally changed everything. While trying to identify that single plant, we again noted that Maryland didn’t have an up-to-date plant list. It gave us that final nudge to create the Maryland Biodiversity Project. It was an idea we'd discussed for years, but it's time had come. In just a few weeks we had the basic web site up and running. It was daunting, a little scary, and such a crazy idea. For the first few years Bill and I worked non-stop. I worked on creating species lists and processing photos for the species pages, while Bill built the database and website. Looking back on those formative years, it’s still mind-blowing we managed to get so much done. Comparing those early years to today, it’s amazing how much things have changed. Instead of building species lists from scratch, we are running fall morning bird counts and numerous targeted data collection efforts. We have over twenty active editors, and Bill has the help of two awesome developers. We have an incredible board to help us fulfill our mission.
On Christmas Eve I was looking back at old MBP Facebook posts. Here are some interesting numbers:
On August 3, 2012, we hit 5,000 species. As of December 24, 2021 we currently have 20,207 species. Amazing! On that same date back in 2012, we had just added our 3,000 contributor. Today we are over 14,400! It took us a bit longer to reach 5,000 total photos. That didn’t happen until March 9, 2013. Now we are over 492,000 photos and a total of 721,243 vetted records in the MBP database.
Unfortunately, we can’t continue to reach our goals and fulfill our mission on just hard work. We need you to become part of our growth. A financial donation to MBP will help secure:
- Fall morning flight counts (yes, notice the “s” at the end of count).
- Even more targeted data collection efforts like our nocturnal insect surveys.
- Continual growth of the MBP website with even more amazing features such as the new seasonality charts.
- MBP reaching even more people so we can help conserve Maryland’s plants and animals.
The Maryland Biodiversity Project could not have grown without the generous contributions of our supporters. In these uncertain days it is even more important that we all become advocates for the environment. It’s not a task that MBP takes lightly. With your help, we will fight to ensure that our children, and the many generations to come, will be able to experience the beauty and the wonder of Maryland’s amazing natural history.
Thank you, and happy holidays,
Jim Brighton
President, Maryland Biodiversity Project
“How do we know what we are losing if we don’t know what we have?”
