To celebrate National Park Week and National Junior Ranger Day, the Natchez Trace Parkway will host a bioBlitz and Wildlife Festival at the Tupelo Visitor Center on Saturday, April 14, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. 

National Park Week and National Junior Ranger Day are about making great connections, exploring amazing places, discovering open spaces, enjoying affordable vacations, and enhancing America’s best idea: the national parks.

A bioBlitz is an opportunity for people to get outside and enjoy the parkway’s natural spaces. It is also an opportunity for participants to go on discovery walks with scientists. On these walks, scientists record as many species as possible in a chosen location. The public is invited to assist the biologists and to learn more about the local plants and animals.

The Wildlife Festival will happen simultaneously at the parkway visitor center. Visitors can learn more about Mississippi’s biodiversity by visiting activity and exhibit booths that include live fish, hunter education, wild mammals of Mississippi, wildlife rehabilitation, endangered bats, Mississippi black bears, pollinators, how to build a birdhouse, animal Olympics, and more.

Award-winning educator Terry Vandeventer will present “Snakes of Mississippi” programs again this year. This year’s celebration also includes the Southeastern Raptor Center presentation of “Live Native Raptors.” For specific presentation times, please visit the parkway's calendar of events webpage, www.nps.gov/natr/planyourvisit/calendar, or call the parkway visitor center at (800) 305-7417. These programs are appropriate for all ages.

This event is free to the public presented by the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Mississippi State University Extension Service, and the Mississippi Geographic Alliance. The parkway visitor center is located at milepost 266 on the Natchez Trace Parkway, near Tupelo, Mississippi.