You can help preserve the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve!
The Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve Company (KBRC) is appealing to our community (and our visitors!) to help collect biodiversity data from our area on an ongoing basis. It is as simple as taking photographs of plants, animals and fungi whenever you walk around your neighbourhood, on our beaches and in our mountains. These can then be uploaded as observations to the free iNaturalist app on your phone or at www.inaturalist.org on your computer.
The KBRC has chosen iNaturalist as a tool for accumulating the relevant data that they need to run their various programs successfully. This is the same platform used for the bioblitzes – simple to use and brilliant at identifying what you have photographed.
Why do they need these observations? Well – a number of reasons … here are some of them:
– to manage the wildlife program more efficiently
– to learn what alien vegetation there is and where these invaders are flourishing
– to collect data over many years to spot trends
– to identify threats to our biodiversity
– to vastly increase the amounts of data used to monitor and protect species and areas of conservation concern, which will improve the models used to inform decision-making.
There are three new projects that the KBRC has created for this purpose and all of the observations made within the borders of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, including past, present and future loaded to iNat at any time by anyone, are automatically pulled into these:
1) Plants (all plants): https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/plants-of-the-kogelberg-biosphere-reserve
2) Wildlife (all the vertebrates): https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/wildlife-of-the-kogelbergbiosphere-reserve
3) Deceased wildlife: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/deceased-wildlife-of-kogelberg-biosphere-reserve
[Please note: For an observation to be included in this project it needs to be loaded as normal and then, once loaded, marked as Dead in the Annotations box. This box is located in the right-hand column underneath the map and Community Taxon on your computer, and in the information tab underneath the map and Data Quality on your phone.]
Please get busy recording all the flora and fauna you see (photographs as well as sounds – such as frog or bird calls – can be uploaded) – together we can collect an enormous amount of valuable information for the scientists and specialists to use. The sooner you start the better – and remember that we are participants in the international City Nature Challenge as well as the Great Southern Bioblitz each year. Your observations during these bioblitzes will be hugely appreciated!
If you are new to iNaturalist (www.inaturalist.org) then here is where to start: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started
KBRC is counting on each one of us to help them make a difference.
TIPS FOR OBSERVATIONS:
– You do not need to know or be able to identify something in order to upload it to the project. There are experts who will help with this once you have uploaded.
– Zoom in / take close-up shots to make sure the subject can be identified. Clear shots help!
– Always check that your phone or camera’s location or GPS function is turned on before you start taking photos, and that your date and time is correct. If you use a computer make sure all the metadata is included whenever you transfer your photos.
– Take multiple angles where possible: eg. underneath as well as on top of a flower, the leaves, the habitat; the front, back and side of insects or mammals, etc.
– Remember to only load one specimen (with multiple photos where available) per observation. If you find another one of the same type, make a separate observation. If you go back a couple of days later and photograph the same specimen – make a new observation.
– If you photograph a bush with flowers of a different species poking through the branches and a beetle on one of the leaves – upload the same image three times and make three different observations: (1. Bush, 2. Unrelated Flower, 3. Beetle).
– If you observed something that is not wild, like a plant in your garden, make sure to mark it as captive/cultivated.
– Observations of humans and their pets are strongly discouraged.
– If you do not know what your photograph is of, and none of the suggestions seem to fit, then please enter a more general identification like “bird” or “fish” rather than leaving it blank
#biosphereliving
Please share this wonderful initiative!