Calling all wildlife watchers! The FWC needs participants for innovative new photo project

We’ll say it; we need your help! The Everglades is a big place, and it can be challenging to create and analyze reliable data about its wide variety of wildlife. That’s where you come in.

The Everglades Wildlife Watch is a new Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) volunteer program and participatory science project based in south Florida, hosted on the Zooniverse platform. Focused on improving our understanding of wildlife patterns on the FWC’s wildlife management area system, this project combines in-the-field volunteering with online participation to give us a region-wide idea of the species that call south Florida home.

Visit: Zooniverse.org/Projects/FWC/Everglades-Wildlife-Watch

Throughout the region’s 17 wildlife management/wildlife and environmental areas, volunteers are setting and maintaining trail cameras. As those cameras collect photos, the images are uploaded to our Everglades Wildlife Watch Zooniverse project, where anyone can jump online and classify photos. Just follow the link, create a free account and start identifying the wildlife in the photos from your own home. If you get one wrong, don’t sweat it. With consensus analysis, your identifications will be combined with others to give us the most accurate picture of wildlife activity in these areas. With your help, we will be able to sort through more photos than we ever could alone and gain a better understanding of how animals are using our WMAs.

Once photos are analyzed and the wildlife has been identified, the data is sent to our area biologists so they can better manage each WMA or WEA. The results will also be uploaded to our interactive Data Dashboard, where you can see what kind of wildlife has been spotted on our cameras around the region and learn more about each species.

The FWC oversees more than 6 million acres of public land established as WMAs. These lands are managed to protect fish and wildlife resources and provide wildlife-based recreation. Visit MyFWC.com/WMAs to learn more about Florida’s public lands or plan your next outdoor adventure with the WMA Recreation Finder.