May 31, 2021

Why aren't my records being added anymore?

If you have been adding records to the Texas Nature Trackers Projects (Herps of Texas, Birds of Texas, etc.) for a couple of years you may have noticed a change recently. Previously, you joined the group and gave permission for your records to be added to the project and you were done. Any eligible record was automatically added to our project.

But iNaturalist has had to recently change the way projects aggregate records because it was too processing-intensive to be able to maintain with the huge number of records coming into iNat daily. So the Texas Nature Trackers managers have had to turn this auto-gathering feature off.

So you mean I have to add each record to the project individually now????

No. This doesn't mean you have to go to all 267 records of herps from your latest herping trip and add each one to the project individually. You can use the project's search tools and batch add all those records at once.

For those unfamiliar with this shortcut, here's how you do that:

  • Go to the Herps of Texas Group Page and find the "Add From Your Observations" link next to the map.



  • This will take you to an Edit Observations page with only your eligible observations listed (i.e. herps found in Texas that aren't already in the project). Choose the "Batch Edit" option.



  • Now you will see checkboxes next to each record, but you don't have to worry about going down the list and choosing each record. Simply choose "Select All" from the top of the page and each record will be selected.



  • Now that all your eligible records are selected, open the pulldown menu at the top of the page under "Add to Project" and choose the Herps of Texas project (the pulldown menu will list all the projects you have joined so you might need to scroll down if there are a lot).



  • The system will do its magic and you will get a finished screen saying that your records have been added to the project. If any records are excluded because they don't qualify or are already in the project, it will let you know.



Now your new records will be included in the HOT project and you should be able to see that on your record page.



Sorry for the addition of an extra step to get your records in the project, but at least using this batch upload you don't have to add to each project one at a time. For those who upload a lot of records (mako252), this should save quite a lot of time.

Chris

Posted on May 31, 2021 05:01 PM by sandboa sandboa | 6 comments | Leave a comment

May 8, 2020

Milestone: 100,000 observation records in the Herps of Texas project!

Thanks to all for your observations and to the curators for their identifications to this valuable data set. Please encourage others who post Texas amphibian and reptile observation records to iNat to join and contribute here.

Posted on May 8, 2020 05:07 PM by gtsalmon gtsalmon | 2 comments | Leave a comment

November 22, 2019

Curation Call for January Data Pull

Hello Herps of Texas curators! Texas Nature Trackers Biologists Craig and Tania are calling on all our fellow curators and managers for the Herps of Texas project to help curate sightings between now and Friday, January 17, 2020, in advance of a data pull. We are working with the Texas Natural Diversity Database (TXNDD) team to update records for SGCNs documented within this project.

We are focusing on those herps that are Species of Greatest Conservation Need. To that point, the link below will take you to a page that contains just those SGCN records in need of curation. As of this post this includes 2,659 observations in need of curation.

Additionally, as a reminder, for records to be added to the TXNDD the accuracy must be 500 m or closer. Please be sure to check accuracy. If that is not accounted for, we are encouraging you to copy and paste those observations into a document and later reaching out to the observer to invite him or her to add an accuracy within the bounds needed. Likewise, you can also simply reach out to the observer each time.

This is the link for SGCNs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?project_id=herps-of-texas&list_id=211277&pcid=false

Thank you for sharing your time and expertise to make this possible!
-Craig

Posted on November 22, 2019 08:12 PM by texasnaturetrackers texasnaturetrackers | 4 comments | Leave a comment

January 23, 2019

37,000 Missing Observations!

If you have ever searched for the number of verifiable herp records from Texas in the Inaturalist database you will see that there are over 112,000 observations. But only 75,000 of those are in the Herps of Texas Project.

Why?

Because many observers don't know how to get their herp observations into the HOT project. We would love to see those 37,000 missing records added. They are excluded because the observers checked a specific box when entering their data, most without thinking about it.

In order for observations to be included in HOT, you must allow the project curators to see your locality data, even if it is obscured or private. Your obscured / private locations are still obscured from all other users.

So maybe we could make a push to notify those observers about this so that at least some of that huge mass of data can be brought in. We could see a 50% increase in the data of this project with that simple fix. If you find an observation of Texas herps that isn't in the project, why not let them know?

I have a separate journal post you could link to if it would help.

https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/sandboa/19459-joining-the-herps-of-texas-project

Chris

Posted on January 23, 2019 07:52 PM by sandboa sandboa | 2 comments | Leave a comment

January 14, 2019

Curation push for March data download

Hello Herps of Texas curators! We're planning on doing another data download in early March for inclusion in the TX Natural Diversity Database, so we're asking for an extra push in the next month and a half to get observations curated.

The top priority observations for curation (roughly 1,700) can be found here:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/project/herps-of-texas?projects%5B%5D=411&list_id=211277&pcid=no

Our last data download (Feb 2017-May 2018) netted over 1,600 curated observations of tracked species that met criteria for inclusion in the TXNDD - thank you for sharing your time and expertise to make that possible!
-Tania

Posted on January 14, 2019 05:16 PM by texasnaturetrackers texasnaturetrackers | 0 comments | Leave a comment

July 16, 2018

County Species list challange 2017

Sorry for the late update on the results from last year's contest.

Jon McIntyre finished with 49 species observed in Nueces County in 2017
Reed McClure finished second with 41 species from Jeff Davis County.

Congratulations to these two for their time spent in the field and their use of iNaturalist!

Posted on July 16, 2018 09:28 PM by toby toby | 2 comments | Leave a comment

May 8, 2018

Curation drive!

We're gearing up for a data download from the Herps of Texas project at the end of May, so we're asking project curators to take some time to get into the roughly 8,000 un-curated observations in the project and review them - our goal is to get as close as possible to 100% curation on verifiable observations.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your time and knowledge to make this project a success!

Posted on May 8, 2018 08:38 PM by texasnaturetrackers texasnaturetrackers | 0 comments | Leave a comment

September 12, 2017

County Species list challange 2017

I just did some quick checking for who was in the lead in the 2017 County Species Challenge.

I didn't check every county but looked at places I knew people were posting from a bunch.

  1. Jon McIntyre 42 Nueces County
  2. Reed McClure 41 Jeff Davis County
  3. Toby Hibbitts 35 Brazos County

Still a few months to go so get out there and get herping. The Fall is a great time to pick up a bunch of those species you have been missing!

Posted on September 12, 2017 06:54 PM by toby toby | 2 comments | Leave a comment

June 20, 2017

June 8, 2017

Herpetologist Position at TPWD

Do you know anyone who may be interest in working for Texas Parks and Wildlife as a Herpetologist in the Wildlife Diversity Program?
Here is more information: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/tpwd/jobs/1762310/natural-resources-specialist-iv-herpetologist

Posted on June 8, 2017 09:34 PM by texasnaturetrackers texasnaturetrackers | 0 comments | Leave a comment