Project update - Changes coming your way!
Hello Thora Hart Naturalists! There are some changes to this project you need to be aware of...
When this project was originally created several years ago, iNaturalist required users to add each observation into the project manually. Unfortunately, if a naturalist was not aware of the project, his/her observations were not included. Over time, the iNat Project Features evolved into "Collection" style which automatically adds your observations into a project like this, based on location. Now we can include all observations made within park boundaries, regardless of whether a user joins as a project member or not.
Without going into technical details, converting the project from "Traditional" to "Collection" was causing some hiccups. To simplify the process, this project has been designated as a "Legacy Project", meaning it remains functional but is not supported by the automated collection process. A new "Thora Hart Park" Project is now available to automatically add all observations within park boundaries. Again, you do not need to do anything to have your observations included. All previous observations have been migrated to the new project already.
A bonus to this change is that your observation counts just jumped up, because we all had observations left out of the old project by accident. For example, @sambiology had 86 observations before, but now he has 322! We previously had 1,392 total observations by 11 people. The new collection feature identified 1,903 observations by 16 people, with a few more smaller tweaks needed to include another 100 or so observations still slipping through the cracks.
SO... WHAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE FOR YOU?
- The "traditional" project of manually adding observations is still available as "Thora Hart Park, Legacy". You can see your old observation counts here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/thora-hart-park-legacy
- The new "collection" project does NOT require you to join, and all of your observations in the park are automatically included! The new project page is called "Thora Hart Park" and can be visited here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/thora-hart-park-92df6fb0-4d87-485f-8106-efd730ffec54
If you have questions, feel free to send me a message! If you think your counts are still incorrect, please let me know so I can research it! If you haven' been to Thora Hart lately, GO NOW! 😃
Happy iNatting!
Kimberlie
@kimberlietx
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@bob777 @suz @galactic_bug_man @lulubelle @brentano @jim-botany 😢 @squaylei2000 @postoak @johnny_ray @abadoo @saltyhiker @grays_n @dianepierce
Thanks for the update much appreciated. Might go out there and look for ants sometime later on in the week.
Great! This switch has been needed. Wish I could add to the observtions. Thora Hart has been one of my all-time favorite places to explore!
I have a whole lot that are not showing up in the new project. Tried to see if I could manually add a couple and the new project did not come up. Only the legacy one.
@brentano All of your observations in the park (regardless of project) total 88. Legacy project shows 14. New project shows 86. I suspect the missing 2 have to do with the accuracy range of the geocoordinates, but that's a minor number and a very technical discussion. Most likely there was just a delay in getting observations automatically updated to the new project. It's not instant, but most times it is within a few minutes. It looks like they are all (-2) there now, but if you continue to find more tag me and I'll look into it/them.
Actually I figured it out. There are a bunch, well at least one day, where I obscured them because they included some desirable mushrooms for foraging. So I guess the project can't auto add them. Hmmm.
@kimberlietx....Thank you, much appreciated! Thora Hart Park is a treasure & needed to have its data well managed. I've obscured some observations too so will see how they show up in the database.
@brentano @postoak Obscured observations are not included in the project since the coordinates publicly show outside of the park. One option is to change the coordinates to a spot in the park (say, the parking lot), un-obscure it, and add a note in details that the observation is manually obscured or a generalized location.
@brentano @kimberlietx Apologies if this needs to be a separate topic or is covered elsewhere, but is there a list of species (even tho' not protected, SGCN, etc.) that probably should be obscured to protect limited local populations from collectors, foragers, etc.? I also realize this can be a quickly evolving "market", making an accurate, timely list difficult. The idea of pinning the observation to the parking lot is a good one, but for a park as small as Thora Hart, might not provide much protection from knowledgeable collectors.
@postoak I'm not aware of anything other than SGCN that is automatically obscured, but @sambiology would know. As for particular observations at THP, I suggest continuing to obscure them and not worry about them being in the project. Protection is more important than statistics! I'd also be happy to take recommendations on known park species that should be excluded from the project as a whole, for protection purposes. Perhaps a double-layer of obscurity would help. :)
Yeah, 'obscuring' is a tricky thing -- when you obscure an observation (either automatically by the iNat IUCN red list/endangered or manually), it may place the observation outside of the polygon... Sometimes even the observations close to a political boundary like a county line, then it may show up in another county or state..or country!
Just like Jan says with Thora Hart being so smallish, a dedicated poacher will comb the whole park to find the species of interest... And he/she/they will likely know a bit about the biology/soil and know where all to look...
In the past, when I've seen someone post an observation that should be obscured, I send them a little message - either on the actualy observation or via an iNat message. Here's an example:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/32864791 Although, the point is moot -- that population was destroyed by road workers (perhaps more dangerous than poachers?!?): https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/34895129
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