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live in Bedford, Nova Scotia
On 2/22/2012 1:10 PM, Paul L wrote:
> I just learned of your nature sightings list and see there are many
> users publishing nature sightings. These sightings could provide useful
> scientific data when pooled together in a database (citizen science).
> That's why I created the website 'Wildlife Sightings',
> http://www.junponline.com
>
> I would appreciate any feedback from NatureNS users on this citizen
> science project and would be delighted to assist anyone with questions
> on it. I live in Bedford, Nova Scotia and could meet with any
> organizations wishing to use these free services to conduct their own
> wildlife surveys.
* we've had this idea of gathering in natural history observations since
1992, when we tried to form a "Biological Checklist of [our local]
Kemptville Creek Drainage Basin," of which the only surviving memorial
is my e-mail address - bckcdb@istar.ca. Dan Ladouceur had the same idea
and tried to launch it with his Green Bird Network, which seems to have
languished since its launch in 2007 - http://www.techwiz.ca/greenbird/
One thing that survives from 1999 is our "Eastern Ontario Natural
History NatureList" which is now a google group -
http://groups.google.com/group/naturelist/about?hl=en - and which like
NatureNS and NatureNB preserves thousands of observations from recent
decades.
After various trials, and observing various databases having been shed
or neglected by their sponsoring institutions, we're now trying to
assemble a Canada-wide NGO, Fragile Inheritance -
http://fragileinheritance.org/ - to standardize and archive such
observations on all taxa. It's slow going, beset with interruptions and
difficulties; it's a subject not regarded as "sexy" by potential
funders, and we've been mostly consumed by keeping our own database fed
with our own observations -
http://fragileinheritance.org/projects/database/database.htm - now
pushing 100,000 records, and trying to support ourselves.
There is a phenomenal amount of data in blogs and e-mail lists of
various kinds, of various levels of accuracy and usefulness, both in
private blogs and public sites such as ebird and bugguide, but some
organization ought to be mining the various sources, wrenching records
into a standard format, and georeferencing them as well as possible.
> Wildlife Sightings, http://www.junponline.com
* Fragile Inheritance has fretted that there hasn't been a generalized
portal for natural history observations, and you've approached it,
though without categories for inorganic and generalized records.
Kari Gunson of Eco-kare - http://www.eco-kare.com/index.html - is
working with FI towards a database of road-related data (initially large
roadkills) as a precursor to an adeqautely funded generalized natural
history database.
So if you, or any on NatureNS, would like to join in this effort, we can
add you to the FI mailing list, and we'll see what can come from the
dream of having a uniform, archived, format for reporting and recording
natural history data in Canada.
fred.
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Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
South Nation Basin Art & Science Book
http://pinicola.ca/books/SNR_book.htm
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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