Crowdsourcing Exercise to Track Colorado Wildlife
Animal lovers who pass through Colorado’s state parks are being asked to help with a crowdsourcing exercise to track wildlife.
It is hoped that the project will tell scientists if and how climate change is altering the state’s habitats.
Keen amateur naturalists can post their photos and sounds of wildlife to the iNaturalist app, which is available for free from Android and iPhone stores. The app automatically records observations with photos and GPS locations. Other users of the app can also see and comment on posted sightings.
Sightings of Rare Species
Additionally, users can get help from other people to identify what they have found. However, if the animal is rare or endangered the details of its location will be obscured on the internet. This is to protect it and to allow wildlife experts to investigate.
Global Project
This Colorado initiative is part of a much larger crowdsourcing exercise called iNaturalist.org which currently has nearly 146,000 citizen scientists as part of its community.
To date, they have observed nearly 85,000 species from more than 2 million observations. Their work is useful to scientists because it can tell them if animals are moving to habitats where they have not previously been found, because of changes in the climate.
One example, given by Scott Laurie, the co-founder of the international project is of a snail found in California. The gastropod was identified by Australian naturalists as an invasive species. This allowed wildlife officials in the state to eradicate it before it caused serious damage.
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