Is there anything that smartphones can’t do?
The most novel use of smartphone technology that I have seen in the past few days comes from the University of British Columbia and their partners at the Zoological Association of London and Chicago’s John G Shed Aquarium, who have developed an app that will fill in huge data gaps on the world’s seahorse populations.
But only if you play along.
Seahorses are among the least studied animals in the world, despite a hige global trade in seahorses, living and dead. They are used in traditional chinese medicine, the death knell for many threatened species. They are difficult to study in the wild and as a result scienctists have no idea how badly off they are.
There are 48 seahorse species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature threatened species list, and 26 are considered “data deficient.”
That’s where you come in. If you are a person who dives or fishes or spends time in ocean habitats you might come across the odd seahorse, you can use the iSeahorse app to record the species, location and even an image.
By doing so, you can help scientists gauge the health of the world’s seahorse populations. The creators hope this app will pave the way for other “crowdsourced” efforts to study threatened species.
“We’ve made important scientific breakthroughs with seahorses in recent years, but they remain incredibly enigmatic animals,” says Amanda Vincent, director of Project Seahorse, UBC and ZSL’s joint marine conservation initiative.
“We know that seahorses are threatened by overfishing, destructive fishing practices, and habitat loss. Now we need to pinpoint populations and places that most need conservation action,” says Heather Koldewey, co-founder of Project Seahorse and Head of Global Conservation Programmes at ZSL.
“By leveraging the enthusiasm of everyone from fishers to SCUBA divers to people on vacations at the beach, we’ll create a more comprehensive picture of seahorse populations around the world. This in turn will inspire new scientific research and practical conservation measures that can help protect ocean habitats,” says Chuck Knapp, vice president of Conservation and Research and Louis Family Foundation Conservation Chair for the Daniel P. Haerther Center for Conservation and Research at Shedd.
“With iSeahorse, we’ve created a suite of citizen science and conservation tools that can be readily adopted by other groups for other difficult-to-study species,” says Scott Loarie, co-director of iNaturalist.org.
LISTEN TO THE GREEN MAN PODCAST
Urban Farming: Host Randy Shore, Mike Bell and farmer Julia Smith of Urban Digs Farm talk about CSAs, urban agriculture, gardening tricks, the obesity epidemic in Canada, riff on the headlines about Kraft Dinner, Metro Vancouver’s idle farmland, the trouble with honey bees and genetically modified lettuce.