How to get rare, charismatic species observations for a place?

General
1

Using the /observations endpoint of the API, I’m trying to get observations for rarely-seen yet charismatic species in any particular place.

Some examples of this might include:

I’m sure you guys have some great suggestions for similarly charismatic species that people specifically go to a place to see and are extremely fortunate if they do see.

Using the API, how might I filter for these? I am currently using the popular=true and threatened=true parameters but it’s not really an accurate representation of rare, charismatic species. For instance, I get back “Common Hippopotamus” for “Western Zambia”. I mean, it’s not too bad, but I thought there might be some better ways.

Maybe you guys have some ideas how to get what I need.

EDIT: I came up with a reasonable solution: to filter for the taxon observation count less than 1,000. It’s not perfect but much better.

Thanks,

Ryan Ashton
Hong Kong

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