Last year we launched our Quantock Wildlife Project and we are delighted that to date 392 people have contributed with approaching 5,000 observations, helping to record c1,500 different species on the Quantocks. This is a great start; not only are we improving our knowledge and understanding of wildlife on the Quantocks but we have also contributed to records for Somerset, the UK and beyond. The UK National Parks and Wildlife Trusts have now also adopted the iNaturalist platform to encourage everyone to get involved in this citizen science project, improving the data and monitoring of our wildlife to help conserve and protect it in future.
This year we want to bring Quantock Wildlife Watch to a wider audience and get more people involved. We will be running a number of events in partnership with the Quantock Landscape Partnership Scheme to support this, with the aim of helping both young and old learn more about our local wildlife and how we can all contribute to its future protection.
Our first event will take place on Saturday 29th April at the Church Centre in Nether Stowey. We will have local wildlife experts, information and activities that everyone can take part in, whether they want to start using the app themselves or not, as well as two guided wildlife walks where people can have a go at recording their own observations should they wish to. The event will be family friendly with some children’s activities led by the Woodland Play Centre for those who wish to take part. Being our first event of this type we hope as many of you will attend as possible to help us learn and plan any future events.
If you are not able to attend our event, Somerset Wildlife Trust have launched West Somerset Wildways project which will also have some events running to encourage people to get signed up and using the iNaturalist app, as the data captured benefit all of us. We will include any of these events on our monthly events mailings should anyone wish to attend as our geographic areas overlap.