Friday, September 23, 2016

Webinar: Texas Nature Trackers Program

Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’Wildlife Viewing and Nature Tourism Working Group2016 Webinar Series

Texas Nature Trackers Program

October 11, 2016 
Noon – 1:00 p.m. EDT

Description: The Texas Nature Trackers Program is using iNaturalist to engage the naturalist community and to help document the persistence of species on the landscape in Texas. In less than four years we have compiled over 85,000 observations of plants and animals. Our top data priority is to detect populations of Target Species to support research and conservation efforts by the Wildlife Diversity Program at Texas Parks and Wildlife. Our outreach efforts are intended to enrich the experience of naturalists in three ways; achievement, knowledge, and impact. At its heart, iNaturalist is a community-driven platform where the interactions between observers help sustain the engagement of observers. Each observation requires validation from the community to become “research grade.” This validation provides positive and educational feedback on species identification for the observer. Texas Nature Trackers also promotes challenges, such as the Herps of Texas Big Year, or the Spring Turtle Challenge. We hope to improve the structure of these challenges to promote a greater conservation awareness, and to focus the attention of the community on data gaps and research priorities. We believe that a well-designed engagement strategy will simultaneously increase the value of the data and enrich the experience of the observer.

Presenter: Cullen Hanks, Texas Nature Tracker Biologist in the Wildlife Diversity Program at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Connection: Join the webinar at fwc.adobeconnect.com/wildlifeviewing (sign in as guest, with first and last name; no password required).
Conference call audio: 888-670-3525

Participant code: 835-369-4269