Thank you to everyone for contributing to the 2016 National Parks BioBlitz! Thanks to all of you, we surpassed all of our Centennial goals - and we beat most of them by Founders Day on August 25!

With more than 140,000 observations of over 13,000 species, this effort represents a tremendous contribution to the National Park Service (NPS) state of knowledge about our parks. By utilizing the iNaturalist platform for the 2016 National Parks BioBlitz, NPS ensured the results were inherently accessible to the NPS as well as the public and our partners. However, in order to ensure the NPS is able to put this information to good use, we are making a coordinated effort to review and process the data.

In order to do this, NPS will cross-reference species observed as part of the BioBlitz with species listed in the official NPS species list database (NPSpecies). Observations that represent potentially new species to the park will be reviewed carefully by NPS resource staff and partners. If verified, these observations will be used to update NPSpecies. Additionally, if observations are flagged that are of other significance such as a range expansion, or presence at an unexpected time, or early detection of an invasive species or a new species to science, these observations will also be reviewed and highlighted so NPS staff is aware of the findings.

Before starting the review process, NPS would like to have observations identified to the greatest degree possible given the available evidence so we capture the best representation of the data.

As of February 28 - 143,121 observations have been loaded. Of these, 126,425 are verifiable. Of those verifiable observations, 68,869 observations are qualified as research grade.

That is 54.5%!

The question now is...can we do even better?

Tomorrow is March 1. I will post again on March 31 and we will see if we are any closer to 65%!

Kelly

This map ranks each National Park by the number of iNaturalist observations made within its boundaries during 2016 (as of the time of this posting). 295 parks have at least one observation!

This is the centennial year for the National Park Service and we've organized BioBlitzes all over the country to celebrate. In addition to that, we're tallying everything that people observe in our National Parks in 2016, whether during a BioBlitz or not! Founder's Day, the birthday itself, is celebrated on August 25 and we would love to pass the 100,000 observations mark by that date. Right now we're at 94,507. Can you help us get to 100,000 in the next 16 days?

Is there a National Park near you? Check out this map to find out. If so, get out there and share what you find on iNaturalist. If not, it's never too late to plan that before-school-starts-end-of-summer-trip and work in some parks. ;) Also, if you have photos from any National Parks from earlier this year that you haven't uploaded yet, now is the time.

I'll be out in Rocky Mountain National Park this Friday hiking and observing. Hope to see you in your National Parks too! We can do this! Keep exploring!

Simon