Record and identify our plants and animals
The natural world in South Gippsland is special. This is not just because of the amazing habitat diversity. It is also because while restoration and protection work has protected important areas at the local level, our flora and fauna are under pressure. To protect the animals and plants living with us in South Gippsland, we need to know what they are and where they are.
So, we’re calling on our Landcare community to help discover and identify plants and animals in South Gippsland with iNaturalist.
How to use iNaturalist
It’s as easy as taking a photo with a camera or your phone. This guide, produced by Tasmania’s Field Naturalists, shows how to visit the iNaturalist site on your computer, to upload your observations, and other useful steps.
You can download the free, easy-to-use iNaturalist app to your phone, too. This video from the Yarra Ranges Shire shows how using your phone can make quick work of adding an observation to iNaturalist.
Kirsty, our Intern, has provided detailed instructions for adding the iNaturalist app to your iPhone, and the process of loading an observation. Coverage of using the FeralScan app to record observations of deer, for example, has also been included.
Some tips and tricks
A range of short ‘how-to’ videos are available to support adding observations to iNaturalist. Insects, for example, are really important to adding to our knowledge about local ecological relationships. Some useful tips using your phone to take images of ‘minibeasts’ can be found here.
Further short videos can be found on the iNaturalist site, covering aspects such as making a copy of an existing observation if it has two or more animals in it.
South Gippsland collection project
Adding observations helps researchers and naturalists across Australia to track changes in our biodiversity. It’s also a great way to learn about and share knowledge of local plants and animals.
When you add your observations to a place somewhere in South Gippsland, it will be pooled into our collection project, South Gippsland’s Living World.
This will help us to help track what animals and plants can be found in our area. At the moment, over 2,400 individual species have been identified for South Gippsland.
One of our members from the Corner Inlet Landcare group has created this Project for the Corner Inlet area, for example. In that area, over 870 species alone have been recorded.
The South Gippsland Shire also has a Project page, created by the Entomological Society of Victoria, for the annual Great Southern Bioblitz.
