An Appeal to our Curious Wanderers and iNaturalist Enthusiasts!

Over the last decade Avalonia has grown in size and earned national accreditation!  In order to better understand and care for our burgeoning system of preserves,  we are working on a project to document and gather data on the flora and fauna that rely on the lands we protect. We call it our Biodiversity Monitoring Initiative.  While it is still in the development stage, we are getting much closer to implementation!

How do we catalogue the various types of plants and animals that call our preserves home? How do we document the animals that use our preserves as corridors to travel to and fro between resources?

We do this in a number of ways, including use of Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM), Trail cameras, and traditional field surveys and site walks by professional botanists and biologists, but one of the most effective (and engaging!) ways we collect such information is by using iNaturalist.  Many of you are probably already aware of this mobile app and may use it for field identifications and keeping track of your own lists.  

We could use your help! With over 7000 acres of diverse habitat, we recognize that public participation and collaboration, or citizen science, will be key to our efforts and will serve as an amazing resource, enabling scientists worldwide to access data that would not be available without our help.

The best thing about this approach is that you don’t have to be a formal scientist yourself! A cell phone and the app, some walking shoes and curiosity is all that is needed. The app is very easy to use and our observations are curated and verified by professional naturalists and specialists behind the scenes.

If you are interested in learning more about collecting data on Avalonia Preserves and contributing to our Biodiversity Monitoring Initiative, please consider filling out this short form,  so that we can let you know about workshops for new users and share field/event dates for all who are interested.  We expect to run periodic BioBlitzes throughout the growing season.  The results from these community based events will help us better steward the preserves and may be used to inform management decisions.