A variety of volunteers showed up. Teachers and other professionals came, and so did parents who home-school their children and want to teach them more about the natural world. Several people signed up to try to overcome their fear of spiders. I guess it worked. They told me afterward it was no longer a problem for them. |
Volunteers have already sent in more then 20,000 specimens. We've identified 233 species so far, two-thirds of them new to the state. At first most of the specimens came from around houses and neighborhood streets. Now we have more of an ecosystems survey, with volunteers exploring alpine areas or riparian wetlands. I think the survey is making people more aware of the great diversity of life around them. |
We just don't know what impact the human population's growth and development has on under-studied groups like spiders. So starting in 1999, we worked for three years with Colorado State Parks to sponsor training workshops all over the state and teach interested people how to locate and collect these arachnids. |