Put your travels to good use by adding your sightings of fauna and flora in Australia to the scientific record.
The official version says:
iNaturalist provides a place to record and organize nature findings, meet other nature enthusiasts, and learn about the natural world. It encourages the participation of a wide variety of nature enthusiasts, including, but not exclusive to, hikers, hunters, birders, beach combers, mushroom foragers, park rangers, ecologists, and fishermen.
Through connecting these different perceptions and expertise of the natural world, iNaturalist hopes to create extensive community awareness of local biodiversity and promote further exploration of local environments. (Source)
But actually, and especially in the Australian context, it’s more important than that… From our travels around this wonderful land, we’ve seen that our natural ecosystems face enormous challenges and serious threats from invasive weeds and feral animals. iNaturalist allows us to play a small part, by helping us to identify and document what we see, which can then form part of the scientific record. My sighting of a Spangled Drongo may not seem like a big deal in itself, but combined with hundreds or thousands of other sightings, it will help to build up a picture of that species numbers and range. It may even help scientists decipher whether Spangled Drongos are in decline or robust health.
However, it’s a lot MORE than that. iNaturalist is heaps of fun. If you see a plant or animal that you can’t identify yourself, then the community online will join in and help – you’ll get expert advice on flowers, fungi, birds, fish… there’s a whole world (literally) of help right at your fingertips.
And when your sighting is verified and becomes ‘research grade’ it may even be picked up by the Atlas of Living Australia, which is a vitally important project.
