Diario del proyecto Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Biodiversity

iNat can enhance the personal experience of awe and learning that led us to seek out places like national parks and forests. Observations also represent an opportunity to document the biodiversity of this special area. I have compiled some tips for both new and experienced iNaturalist users visiting the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). This is an invitation to consider whether these tips might help you. I am not suggesting that you have to follow all of them in order to enjoy using iNat. I also would not want anyone to prioritize iNat over any other aspect of your trip. Enjoy your time in the area.

New to iNat

Spend some time using iNaturalist in your home community before your vacation. Nature is everywhere, even in urban areas. It is easy to get started with iNaturalist, but learning a bit more about the tool and avoiding some common mistakes can help you get the most out of it. Experimenting and learning before your trip allows you to focus on observing and enjoying yourself while here.

Experienced iNatters

• Metadata from phones and cameras may not be as consistent while you are here. Other aspects of your workflow may change as well where internet is limited. Double check the basics on your observations, e.g. observed date, location, identification matched with taxon from iNat database. If using your phone for photos and not using the app for photo capture, turning on a GPS based app (Gaia, AllTrails, etc.) can help with location accuracy.
• I use a project to monitor unknowns. I think quick feedback leads to better results for most users, so I do plan to ID recent observations regardless of account age. If you are doing bulk IDs and don’t want immediate broad IDs, please message me. I am happy to exclude you from the unknowns project for a while. I can’t stop others from IDing your unknowns and there is no mechanism to prevent people from adding IDs - other than your asking in observation comments/notes.

Regional Tips

Some of these apply across iNat, but I am including them based on what I commonly see here and adding local context.

• Practice “Leave no trace” principles throughout the region. Laws vary between the parks and forest.
• Respect the wildlife and keep your distance. We don’t need a close-up of big game to ID them. Photography and wildlife spotting are an important part of many people’s Yellowstone vacation. Consider binoculars, spotting scopes, and zoom lenses. Digiscoping is an activity that incorporates scopes and digital photography. There are shops in the gateway towns that rent some of this equipment and wildlife tours are generally equipped with scopes.
• Closer views of smaller organisms are nice, but please don’t trample other organisms to get it. If you see something once, there is still a good chance you will see it again down the trail/road where a close-up will be possible. Zoom lenses are also an option for these situations where something interesting is a bit off trail.
  
• There is more than big game. Please enjoy and document bears, bison, elk, moose, pronghorn, wolves, ect. Also consider the small, the ubiquitous, the less flashy. I have driven all over the park hoping to find animal X for an out of town guest and felt a bit disappointed because it didn’t happen. You can’t control where the animals are, but you can enjoy what you do observe. You might also find some unexpected joys. This insect observation was a delight, and there are only 2 observations in this genus in the GYE currently IDed on iNaturalist.
• Focus on wild organisms and make sure to mark any observations that are not wild as “captive/cultivated”. You won’t find much attention for your captive/cultivated organisms in this area. There aren’t many users IDing these at this point. This will also help maintain Computer Vision (CV) recommendations for wild items.
• If you see an interaction between species, e.g. insect on a plant, consider getting photos sufficient for IDing both. Post them as separate observations, and make it clear what each observation is focusing on.
• Be patient with waiting for IDs. This isn’t a place where only very recent observations get IDs. We see a high number of observations in a short period over the summer. It takes a while to process these, but the winter is long with few new observations. Check in on your notifications (consider signing up for the daily email in your account settings) and enjoy remembering your vacation as items are IDed for months (even years) to come. The less common something is, the longer it may take for a qualified IDer to find it. Review the tips for getting your observations identified.
• Your ID helps qualified IDers find your observation. If you don’t add at least a broad ID, someone else will … eventually (this isn’t true elsewhere on iNat, where the unknown pile grows nearly everyday). Overly narrow and incorrect (CV assisted) IDs may result in delayed or no IDs. This is a more significant issue in areas with fewer active identifiers, like the GYE. Consider: When iNat says it is “pretty sure this is…”, the recommendation is accurate over 90% of the time. This drops to 50% for the recommendations without this statement. If you are using CV to suggest IDs, turn on local suggestions (at least as a first attempt to find a match).
• Agree is not equivalent to “like” or “thanks”. Only agree if you can confirm the ID, do not assume an IDer is right because they have a high number of IDs, are a local, or have a degree in biology. If you want to thank an IDer, do it in a comment or message. We don’t have enough active IDers to overcome inaccurate research grade observations at this time. Inaccurate research grade observations degrades the quality of CV recommendations for everyone.

Identifiers

• Using this collection project as a filter, or the Greater Yellowstone Area (Zone) in place will allow you to cover this whole area at once.
• Using Unknowns of the Yellowstone Ecosystem as a project filter, excludes observations with an ID such as bacteria and viruses (these typically show up in a general unknown search and are very common in this area, e.g. bacterial mats at thermals).