Welcome to the Rare Species of Oregon project!
Hello intrepid iNaturalistas!
Thank you for joining the Rare Species of Oregon project! This project collects observations of rare or potentially rare species that are of interest to the Oregon Biodiversity Information Center (ORBIC). Our office maintains detailed information on Oregon's rare species distributions, statuses, habitats, management, and much more. Your observations will help us assess where these species are and how they are doing. Many local, state, and federal agencies rely on this information for planning and management, and our data also feeds into an international database maintained by NatureServe for regional assessments and analyses.
Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions about what we do or if you have any rare species information you'd like to call my attention to. Observations are manually added to this project so I know I have only scratched the surface of relevant observations - you can search for your own observations to add using the "Add from your observations" link on the project home page, or you can add others' observations as you browse iNaturalist by clicking "Add to project" on the observation page.
You can also comment on our species list (recommend something to be added, dropped as too common, add distribution info, etc). We go through a thorough review and publication of this list every 2-3 years. We just published a new edition of our Rare Species of Oregon publication but we can make changes to our database at any time, so your comments are always useful.
Thanks again and happy observing!
Lindsey Wise
Oregon Biodiversity Information Center
Biodiversity Data Manager
Comments
I have a few questions. (1) Where I live (Sunriver area), western grey squirrels, western bluebirds, chipping sparrows, and possibly some other species on your list are commonly seen (every day for some species). I assume you'd like at least some reports of their occurrence but not as often as I see them. Do you have a strategy for observation entry for these common species? (2) This area is important habitat for Oregon spotted frogs. A threat for spotted frogs as well as other species are bullfrogs which are spreading into our area. Do you want reports of their occurrence or other newly invasive species for my area? (3) Allen's chipmunk occurs here although I've seen only one (and possibly I'm wrong although I could send a picture). Do you want observations for species not on your list that may be rare for lack of information or may be common but I'm ignorant of the data? (4) I've glanced at the Rare Species of Oregon publication. Is there guidance in there for deciding what species to report? Thanks in advance for your responses. Jeff Yeo
Hello Jeff and thank you for your interest! These are excellent questions.
1) There are different levels of "rare" species that we list in our Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Species of Oregon book. Some of these are only considered rare in certain areas of Oregon or only the breeding populations are considered rare, or one of our agency partners has it on their management list but they may be considered stable statewide. Based on a species' level of rarity, we will either track detailed information on populations in our Biotics database; store observations in an uncurated animal observation database; or simply list the species on our "watch" list, which leaves it open for other agencies or species experts to recommend a status change if needed.
Western grey squirrel and western bluebirds are both listed by the Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife as a "sensitive: vulnerable" species where they occur west of the Cascades, and both are part of their Conservation Strategy, but they are considered stable east of the Cascades and we have them ranked as "S4: apparently secure" in the state. Chipping sparrow is on ODFW's Conservation Strategy as well so we have included it on our list. Observations of Western grey squirrel and western bluebird in western Oregon would be particularly useful for ODFW. However, we also use observations from across the state to build species habitat distribution models, such as this one for Western squirrel.
All of which means - if you add observations for bird/mammal/herp species that are more common in your area, but still listed in our book, we will use them in our observation database and they will help inform our habitat distribution models, and can be used to reassess species' statuses should their populations change. However since these are considered stable in the state and are common in your area, there's no need for you to go out of your way to report them from east of the Cascades. If you're already making these observations for fun or for another purpose, we will gladly use them.
2) Our office also maintains an invasive species database for the state through iMapInvasives. I have another iNaturalist project set up for this. Bullfrogs are on our invasive species list and I would love to get more reports for where they are located! Like our rare species database, the data from the iMapInvasives program is shared with a variety of agencies and organizations involved in invasive species management and habitat restoration.
3) We do keep track of common animal observations in our observation database, which we use to update habitat maps like the one I linked to for Western squirrel. However, this Rare Species of Oregon project is only concerned with the species listed in our rare species publication, so I would not be adding Allen's chipmunk here unless its status changes. When we next update our common animal habitat maps we can mine iNaturalist and other sources for those observations.
4) The species that are highest priority for us are those on our List 1 and List 2 in the book - these we consider to be critically threatened or endangered in Oregon. An easy way to see all List 1 and List 2 animals in one place would be to download the Excel export for vertebrate species from our latest publication and use a filter or sort on the "ORBIC List" column. You can further narrow things down for your area by looking for species that occur in the EC ecoregion (East Cascades) or in Deschutes county.
Thank you again for keeping an eye out for these species, and please let me know if you have other questions or comments!
Best,
Lindsey Wise
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