Our Biodiversity Squamish Project, based on the iNaturalist application, was started in March 2017 by Judith Holm. Judith imagined a way to encourage people of all ages, with all levels of knowledge and with all kinds of photographic equipment to see more in nature and to contribute to a database used by scientists worldwide.
It made ecological sense that the boundary be the same as that of two relevant projects underway at the time: the BC government’s Howe Sound Cumulative Effects Project and the initiative to create a Howe Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region. To support the UNESCO nomination, the Átl’ka7tsem / Howe Sound Biosphere Region (AHSBR) iNaturalist project was created in 2019. The species dataset associated with Biodiversity Squamish was useful for the nomination application, as it included museum and professional records.
Both these iNaturalist projects are active. Biodiversity Squamish observations are gradually becoming more specific to the Squamish area. The AHSUBR project automatically captures all iNaturalist observations within the Biosphere Region. On each project’s home page there is a map of observations. You can zoom in to your area of interest and open observations in the location they were photographed.
To learn more about Biodiversity Squamish and how to get started, go to the project’s home page, scroll down and click on ‘About’. Be sure to click on ‘more’ to see the full description and useful links to the iNaturalist website. iNaturalist will help you with identification, as will other iNaturalist members. You can join the Biodiversity Squamish Facebook group to share and discuss what you and others are finding.
Photo above: Double rainbow over the Squamish Estuary, by Vanessa Isnardy. Project logo created by Carl Halvorson.