City of Manitou Springs encourages community members to take pictures of insects and birds for ‘Pollinator Palooza’
MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - The City of Manitou Springs is encouraging community members to become ‘citizen scientists’ by collecting data on pollinator species in the area through picture-taking. The ‘Pollinator Palooza’ started on March 1st and will end on May 31st of this year.
Last year, Manitou Springs became the ‘world’s 1st certified municipal pollinator district’ with help from the Butterfly Pavillion, Manitou Pollinators, and other volunteers. The certification stemmed from an issue community members saw, with the decline of the bee population, which would be detrimental to wildlife and food supply. The solution was to ‘transform’ Manitou into a ‘haven for pollinators’. Where the bees can reintegrate and repopulate.
The ‘Pollinator Palooza’ is a start in the certification, as the city is trying to collect and document local species with the community’s help.
“All the observations will go towards supporting the research tenant,” Joshua Radey, a senior geospatial analyst for Manitou Springs said. “Which basically is going to be things like the total number of observations, species biodiversity, and just overall participation from the public.”
The City of Manitou Springs said, that in just five weeks, they’d received over 200 observations from the community.
“We’ve been able to double our current available data set which is pretty impressive,” Radey said.
The city asks community members to download the iNaturalist app, create an account, and take as many pictures as possible of the birds and insects they see.
“Super user friendly,” Radey said. “You don’t actually have to be as big biologist or big bug nerd or any of that to really participate. All you got to do is be able to see that it’s an insect or its bird.”
After the pictures are taken, the photos will be uploaded onto iNaturalist servers, where all Manitou Springs region photos will be paired to the project, and the users who took the photos will be connected to the leaderboards.
The city says users participating in the ‘Pollinator Palooza’ will have some friendly competition to see ‘who can add the most pollinators to the database.’ And those on the leaderboards, can win prizes. Local sponsors and partners collected over $1300 in prize donations, which range from stays at local hotels to gift cards.
Click here to learn more about the ‘Pollinator Palooza’ and how to get involved.
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