I have read/am reading everything in said other thread. But have avoided posting because it seems more about politics than outcomes. Which is discourse I tend to find little value in engaging with. Even with this statement I feel I have been more political than I feel is net positive. (This is not to down play the value of discourse, just that I deal with politics enough in my work, that I prefer to avoid them outside of it).
In the national visitor centre I work in I introduce people to inaturalist (Via web demonstration) every day, and will keep doing so. Its one of the most powerful tools I have for encouraging people to spend more time engaging with nature. Especially when they learn they can find places to look for things that interest them. At the same time if they go out and shoot stuff in my park, I get even more of a picture of whats going on out there than I would see by myself/by the work my colleagues are doing.
I have only photographed 1063 / 2127 inat recorded species in my local ecological district. So that gives me a ever growing list of local species to learn.
Yeah encouraging others, not only helps stoke my personal interest in knowing every species in my park. But also helps with certain things we are looking out for in our park for various reasons in work life.
How has iNat helped me ? It help me pass time. I feel like I’m a scientist without a professional license. It help me break away from some prevailing social media, where there may be a “toxic culture”.
The internet is evolving. Aspects of the internet are data centers, cloud computing, AI, and culture in the internet that involves real persons.
iNat is similar in some ways to a social media, with its own rules. Of course it serves an international scientific circle. I do not know the inner workings of iNat.
The study of science is a way of life. It may go into philosophy. In school, science has several parts such as Physics, chemistry, Biology. In everyday life, everything is included. iNat is like biology I guess.
I wouldn’t label it ‘data pilfering’. We enjoy collecting data to be used by scientists. A volunteer part of the team - and we gain knowledge in turn. A captive encyclopaedia to answer our questions - what is that, what is it doing, but why is it doing that …
Well, iNat helped me very much
At first, it is the best way to find information about the birds that were seen in a place where I want to go
Secondly, it is very cool that I can open the site and see the new birds in the places I want
And finally, if I can’t indentify a bird, professionals will help me)
I am greatly enjoying iNaturalist. It has helped grow my understanding and enjoyment for finding and identifying grasses (and many other plants, animals, fungi). I use the classic app for iPhone and then check IDs later on the website at my desktop as I look through keys and books. Or upload telephoto camera photos later to the website. The ability to compare with other’s observations, see maps, make projects for specific areas to use as tools to share with others has been great to do both for personal interest and professional conservation biology use. I find the various geographic projects (observations of a particular national monument, for example) and targeted projects a big plus (biotic soil crust projects, tracking projects, rare taxon projects). Bioblitzes are a lot of fun too, and have helped conserve rare species such as scorpions when organized by agencies trying to learn more about cryptic species.
I don’t usually use Seek, but I have to say that a lot of people I know do. I have a few friends I am mentoring who do not have biological backgrounds. They are using Seek to start to learn about plants in their local area. One young man really got into this–he is taking photos of plants in his city and local parks in order to learn more. He’ll send me an image of young green annual grass blades from a California winter hillside and ask what is this? I tell him we have to wait until flowers and seeds appear in spring in order to be able to identify it. Seek sometimes suggests wrong answers for leafy plants, but I think it is great he is getting out there roaming the hills and now learning ecology too. It’s a jumpstart into this amazing world with a little magic digital device. Seek is a cool tool that is easy, and gets his foot in the door. I asked him why he is so interested in learning about obscure annual grasses, and thistles, oak saplings, and other plants now? He said it is just fun. And easy to do around the place he lives, without even having a car. It’s also very inexpensive. He took it all for granted before. He has started to take classes in biology now, so again–Seek may not be perfect but it is a fantastic way to get started I think, for anyone regardless of background.
I do not use the iNat new app because it does not have the functionality I want, and I think having more than one app available to choose from is the answer.
iNat data for bats is extremely valuable. When the call files are added to observations they provide a voucher record of who, when, where each species was. Even casual observation make the iNat citizen science efforts invaluable. Most are from areas w/o any formal study or research. Even when IDs posted are not correct, it is easy to update and correct them if the records are sufficienct quality to allow that.
I have always been passionate about nature and I often interacted with it, but always from a non-scientific way; or so I thought. I have been recording observations, noting genus and other aspects since my teenage hood, to learn. Looking back I see how my diving logbook was extremely detailed about each genus observed and observations about their habitat. All this for myself, to learn on me own. I was cataloging this by myself and it has satisfied me.
However, iNat showed me that this can be done collectively at an unsuspected scale and with the help of many experts.
I was a pretty decent birder and then after I joined iNat its like my life took a turn, I never liked bugs but now I cant live without observing and learning more about them, I am so occupied by bugs that I lost my birding skills, but now I have a dream job in mind (dunno if yall could guess but its to be an entomologist )
I agree with this, I didnt know anything abt insects, plants, arachnids, etc but now this magical world outside of birds and mammals has opened up (the marine beings aren’t invited yet :P )
The marine beings are a different world of its own. It’s a bit like visiting another planet: you are but a brief visitor in their world but every encounter is meaningful. You’ll love it !
I’ve always been interested in nature and came to inat by way of being a nature photographer. I started by looking at where I could find plants and animals that I wanted to photograph. But almost immediately I started thinking that I should post all the photos I already had of nature subjects. So I started going thru my archives and posted many, though not all.
In almost no time I started making an effort to go out and photograph everything I could to post. And just like that, I became an avid user and now spend a good portion of my day on inaturalist…posting what I’ve seen, checking out what others have seen and identifying whatever I can, mostly for my local area, Southern California.
I’ve learned so much from using inat and have also met fellow users which is always great. And whereas in the beginning I was primarily interested in birds and mammals, I started photographing insects and spend a lot of my efforts in that area as not only do I enjoy it, but it is an area that is somewhat under observed and is so important to our ecosystems. More recently I’ve also really started paying attention to plants. In the past I sort of just took them for granted and didn’t really pay that much attention to them except when they were flowering. Doing identifications has also helped me a lot with learning plants and I really credit inaturalist with stimulating my interest in plants.
Finally, I really like that my observations may be of use to science. Nature is really being challenged and I think it’s super important that we record as much as we can about what surrounds us. Knowing what’s there and what plants and animals are thriving and which ones are not is the only way we can make progress in helping to preserve our planet.
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