I don’t cry over ecosystem devastation, losses, and threats (much). That news stiffens my resolve and I commit to doing more. But hearing about a nationwide bioblitz, seeing people exploring, taking photos, uploading them to iNaturalist, and documenting the natural world of their everyday lives — this brings tears because it’s personal, precious, and precarious.
The video announcing Canada’s nature selfie made me cry. Over 10,000 Canucks are bioblitzing their country this summer to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday. BioBlitz Canada 150 involves 35+ different bioblitz events (map). Volunteers and expert naturalists are photographing and documenting Canada’s natural biodiversity to celebrate and to collect data used in tracking wildlife and ecosystem changes over time.
The events began in April and will continue into September (calendar). Most of the bioblitzes mingle community members with scientists. But ten science-intense events in remote areas are closed to the public and involve only specialists. All participants will use the iNaturalist.ca app to upload photos, locations, and notes. Canadian Wildlife Federation organized the nature selfie bioblitz.
“It’s about making a listed inventory of all living species in a particular area,” BioBlitz Canada 150 manager Elizabeth Gammell told CTVNews.ca “Everybody is doing actual real science that is going to help future wildlife, and aid future decisions about our environment.” [...]
The information will be analyzed by experts, and shared to a public domain where scientists, government organizations, and research institutions can use it to track wildlife patterns and monitor the environmental impact of climate change. [...]
Canada has about 70,000 species known to science, according to Gammell. She estimates that figure represents about half of what is truly out there in nature. [...]
“You don’t have to be an expert, or you can be a world-leading expert. You’re going to be working and learning together,” she said. “If you find something and you’re not sure what it is, take a photo of it, add information about where you are, what time of day, anything you are able to add, and upload it to iNaturalist.”
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns spinning around us.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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The next community bioblitz events are this weekend.
- The Trout River Natural Area (Prince Edward Island — PEI) is a five km trail in a forested riparian zone along the Trout River.
- Thousand Islands (Ontario) is Canada’s smallest national park and covers nine square kilometers. It only has 21 islands, but also many smaller islets.
Visit the links for more information on how to participate. Check out the calendar for others.
The Norfolk Forest Important Bird and Biodiversity Area Bioblitz (Ontario) this weekend is for scientists. In a 24 hour period, taxonomic experts will inventory all species in the official Important Bird and Biodiversity Area. These IBA areas are selected by BirdLife International as meeting the following criteria.
- Places of international significance for the conservation of birds and other biodiversity
- Recognised world-wide as practical tools for conservation
- Distinct areas amenable to practical conservation action
- Identified using robust, standardised criteria
- Sites that together form part of a wider integrated approach to the conservation and sustainable use of the natural environment.
Norfolk Forest is one of Canada’s best examples of Carolinian Forest (called eastern deciduous forest in the U.S.). This forest type occurs in the eastern U.S. from the Carolinas north into Ontario. Once it stretched across southern Ontario from Toronto to Detroit. Now the remaining fragments in Canada comprise less than 15 percent of it’s former extent. Highways form barriers to wildlife movement, and the forest patches are “all edges.” They are especially vulnerable to invasive species from the adjacent developed areas and other impacts.
The conversion of the great Carolinian wetland-prairie-forest ecosystem into the country's most densely populated region -- 10 million people, nearly one Canadian in three, now live there -- has increased the pressure on those few communities of original wildlife still hanging on in other ways.
In 150 years, newcomers demolished 85 percent of the Carolinian Forest ecosystem. This weekend scientists will inventory the forest, and community members will photograph nature at Trout River and Thousand Islands. Over the next few months ten thousand people will photograph Canada’s nature, a snapshot of 2017 biodiversity. How many of the 70,000 known species and the estimated 70,000 undocumented species will get their picture taken? Will any species new to science be discovered?
I wonder what the 2167 selfie will look like for Canada’s 300th birthday.
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Remember the 2017 City Nature Challenge involving 16 cities in the U.S. that I wrote about a couple months ago? Dallas whipped out 1,000 last minute submissions to come from behind and edge out San Francisco 23,957 observations to 23,024. Houston reported the most species (2,419) followed by Austin (2,401). Los Angeles had the most participants (1,034).
Everybody won — including nature. iNaturalist reports
All 16 cities together: 124,092 observations / 8557 species / 4051 participants.
We also added 3077 new species that had not previously been recorded on iNaturalist in these 16 cities, and 5689 new iNaturalist observers who had not previously made observations in these 16 cities!
City that added the most new species to their region through the City Nature Challenge: Houston with 594 new species.
City that added the most new iNaturalist participants to their region through the City Nature Challenge: Los Angeles with 436 new observers
The Bucket is Daily Kos’ version of iNaturalist. How many observations have we documented?