Help with Fall Cleaning in Sea Otter Prey

First of all, thanks to everyone who has made contributions to this project and/or have tagged me on project candidate observations! I am amazed at some of the images you all have captured---well done!

When I first started this project and was going through all sea otter observations, it seemed too intimidating to ask each user to duplicate their observations with an ID in which they probably have limited confidence without my prodding . As they trickle in now, one by one, it seems less daunting to get each observation added in the way that best benefits the project and facilitates processing of data. I am still evolving my best technique for explaining this process, especially to new users. Any advice there would be appreciated.

For existing project observations: I'd like to ask help from contributors in organizing the project in a way that is more consistent with my original goals. If you have observations of sea otters that are included in this project (with prey listed as a field under "Eating"), I would be greatly appreciative if you could take the time to do the following:

1. Copy the sea otter observation and assign an ID of the prey (to the lowest possible taxon) to the duplicate. In most of the "sea otter" additions to the project we have already come to a conclusion on ID level of prey.
2. Add the new prey observation to the project filling out the field "Eaten By" with sea otter (whichever subspecies is relevant) and leaving blank the "Eating" field (so as to avoid implying cannibalism).
3. Remove the original sea otter observation from the project.

Here is a beautiful example: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3950966

A few of you have multiple observations to process this way---maybe just flip one over every now and then until we get as many as possible cleaned up.

So if you have some time between the winter fungi and waiting for the spring bloom, I'd be grateful for some assistance. If we get it all cleaned up, I promise to make a nice graph for you as a reward!

Gena

Posted on November 5, 2016 04:55 PM by gbentall