Eaton Canyon through the Eyes of iNaturalist Everyone can be a Citizen Scientist

Eaton Canyon through the Eyes of iNaturalist Everyone can be a Citizen Scientist Paw Prints June 2020 Susan Hopkins

We are fortunate to have Eaton Canyon and all of its amazing biodiversity so conveniently nearby. On any given visit, you may see old friends, like California Buckwheat, Eriogonum fasciculatum.

Or perhaps you are lucky enough to stumble across something you have yet to encounter in the Canyon, such as the Wavy-leafed Soap Plant, Chlorogalum pomeridianum.

When I am in the Canyon, I use the opportunity to take pictures of my observations and upload them to iNaturalist, a citizen science Web site. It is one of many online resources that can help you identity the plants, animals, insects and fungi around you. In the process of learning more, your observations help create research-quality data for scientists.

During the early days of the safer-at-home order, I felt like I was suffering withdrawal from not being able to visit the Canyon. So I did the next best thing and spent time on iNaturalist.org taking a virtual tour of the Canyon. Then I started helping to identify the observations of other citizen scientists. This was when I realized that Eaton Canyon did not have a formal iNaturalist project. iNaturalist projects let you pool your observations with other contributions on iNaturalist, so I created one for Eaton Canyon.

The data that popped up amazed me. It revealed over 10,000 observations and 858 unique species! The observations span from the most observed (Western Fence Lizard, Sceloporus occidentalis) to the seldom seen (Bobcat, Lynx rufus).

Photo By Tom Mills

Many of you may want to be involved with the Eaton Canyon project on iNaturalist. Here is what you need to do, step-by-step, to get started.

The iNaturalist app is free and downloadable from your phone’s app store (on your computer the address is www.inaturalist.org).

Once you have set up an iNaturalist account, you only need four things to begin making observations.

1. Upload photos of your observation, either taken with your phone or camera.

2. Determine what you saw. The iNaturalist application will help you identify the subject.

3. When did you see it. iNaturalist picks up the date from your photograph. I like this because I can add photos that I took in past years without having to look up the dates.

4. Where did you take the picture. The app uses a map for location placement.

Now that you have your iNaturalist account you can explore nature from anywhere. Take a look at the Eaton Canyon project. You can take a virtual tour of an area of the canyon you are planning to visit. Investigate a species that you may be curious about. Add identifications to help establish observations as research grade. You can follow other users like me (my iNaturalist user name is “squirrelbait”), and you can add your own observations. Any observation that you make within the boundaries of Eaton Canyon will automatically be added to the Eaton Canyon project.

You may find that some of your photos become part of scientific research projects. If so, congratulations! You are now a citizen scientist!

Created By

Susan Hopkins

Appreciate