Personally I found out thanks to the Ontario Parks’s newspaper! I would love to add a photo but can’t find it! I don’t know if it got in the trash or lost in my basement! Will add a photo when I find it!
How did you discover iNaturalist?
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I first ran across it in 2010, a couple of years after it had started. Some friends of mine and I had been using a variety of other citizen science apps and was looking for something a bit better and that wasn’t so specific to particular regions or sub-branches of life.
Made an account in mid-2011 when I finally got a smartphone and been using it since.
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An article in Birding magazine. I came for the citizen science, but stayed for the community.
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Someone posted a link in a local naturalists Facebook group. This was back in the early days of iNat when it was still a bit clunky and had some bugs to work out. I created a profile but ended up forgetting about it.
A few years later I went on a date with a woman who was big into iNat and she encouraged me to get back into it. I’ve been using it ever since!
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I went to a youth climate summit in 2019 and one of the sessions was on this app. I had never heard of it but I was intrigued so I attended it and here I am! Completely obsessed with posting my observations and identifying animals
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I wanted to know what a potted plant I admired was. I figured “there has to be an app for that.” While there are indeed apps for that I also discovered iNat while I was looking, and thought it would be fun. Because it was so much fun, I also decided to sign up for my state extension office’s Master Naturalist program when I saw that advertised. So as a side note, be gentle with the newbies who post potted plants, you may just find a hidden naturalist among us.
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Love reading join stories! Hope there will be more soon! I’ll like each and everyone of them tomorrow when I’m able to like again!
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That’s the good side of Facebook!
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Someone suggested it to me.
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There’s an app for everything(except for a few things…)
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saw it in a google search option when trying to identify a butterfly.
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My intern supervisor at WFSU-TV recommended it to me. He produces all ecology content over there and he uses that app religiously whenever he’s on outings. This was back in January 2019, and I’ve been using it actively ever since
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Instead of tagging everyone and saying a few words, just liking their post works the same :)
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@edanko helped me get into it
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I found it by looking for pictures of Mediterranean geckos
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Someone who had started an “Anoles in Florida” project sent me email in 2013 asking if I would contribute some of the photos on my website wildherps.com to it. I hadn’t heard of it until then, but wanted to help so I signed up and added some of my anole photos. Then I got hooked.
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I discovered iNaturalist while browsing the internet for rare butterflies. I was like “Wow, what’s this website full of misidentifications?!?!”
Jk but not really
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I really don’t remember how I found out inaturalist. I somehow heard about the site and checked it out. I was not really interested in other species as much as birds so I forgot about it. I got into inat after I was going through play store and found the app. I got interested in other species too at that time slightly so I joined. Inat made me get much into many other species.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthisplant/
While it’s full of cultivated plants and enthusiastic helpers for those, wild plant id there seemed to be more of a challenge. After I posted some, someone mentioned they send all their wild plant obs to iNat instead. Bingo!
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I heard it mentioned by a few people in a bird walk group I attended fairly regularly. I don’t have a smart phone, but after checking it out I decided to get an account and upload photos from my camera via my laptop.
In December 2019 I created an account, thinking that there would be times it would be too icy for nature walks–and we had an extremely mild Winter! So I got more photos, but no uploading. Then in March 2020 the pandemic happened and all our walks were cancelled (although I did some solitary walking) and I began uploading and otherwise participating.
Walks are starting up again, although with limited numbers and masks required. I’m happy with that and trying to encourage others to join iNat.
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