Fall River Roundup marked an exciting milestone as HRWC’s first monitoring event open to new volunteers since the start of the pandemic!

River Roundup volunteers at their monitoring site. Photo by John Lloyd

Eighty new and veteran volunteers gathered last Saturday to collect benthic macroinvertebrates at 34 long-term monitoring sites across the watershed. Volunteers were rewarded with unusually warm October weather – clear skies and 70 degree sunshine.

While COVID precautions prohibited us from gathering at the office for our typical volunteer orientation, HRWC staff put together a training video to welcome new volunteers to the program and provide some tips and reminders for returning folks. We tried to be entertaining as we educated. Hope you like it!


While we look forward to the day that all of our volunteers will be able to meet and mingle safely over snacks and science, it is exciting to be able to open our monitoring events to the greater community once again!

Damselfly nymph collected during River Roundup. Photo by John Lloyd

2021 Roundup Results will be published once we’ve identified all of the bugs and crunched the data – so stay tuned for updates on watershed health in the coming months!