If you’re able to safely explore in and around the Fort River, and have access to a smartphone, camera or computer, we invite you to join us in the 2020 Fort River BioBlitz!
The Fort River BioBlitz is an all-ages, all-abilities, no-training-required way to get familiar with the living things in our local environment – we would love for you to join us! This community science activity helps to collect information on living (or, biological) elements of a place quickly through the help of many hands. This BioBlitz is powered by iNaturalist, a free online catalog used by scientists and researchers to track plant and animal species all over the world using observations made by people like you and me. Each observation is made by taking a picture and uploading it to iNaturalist – the catalog will help you identify what you saw. This is a great way to get to know our non-human watershed neighbors, and learn more about the life sustained in and around the Fort.
Here’s how it works:
- Create an account with iNaturalist – either online at www.iNaturalist.org, or through the iNaturalist app available for free download on your iPhone or Android smartphone.
- Join the ‘Fort River Watershed Association BioBlitz’ project. You can search for us, or follow this link.
- Start making observations! Next time you’re out in the water, woods, lawn, street, or even find a cool bug inside your home, take a picture and upload to iNaturalist. As part of the upload, you’ll be offered suggestions on what you saw – choose the one that you think is the best fit!
- Once your observation has been uploaded, its available for ongoing research – here and all over the world.
You can participate in the BioBlitz any time, as much or as little as you are able. We will be keeping track of the observations made here in our watershed all year – you can to by visiting the project page!
Stay tuned for upcoming BioBlitz projects from the Fort River Watershed Association!
Would you like to be added to the project directly using your existing iNaturalist account? Please let us know below:
