aphili8's Journal

This is a mostly experimental project so that I can see what priority species might be available for the iMapInvasives project for PA. I feel like there must be an easier way to do this, but right now this is what I've come up with.

I based high priority species on this list as it stands today, 12/1/2021
https://www.paimapinvasives.org/blank-h1u6p

I have questions, though, such as - There are several that are genus-level on this list. I am hoping that putting the genus in will capture both observations made to genus-level and all the species in that genus. Will it?

Also, how does a collection project work? Do I have to do anything to collect observations or are they automatically entered whenever someone makes an eligible observation?

Things I don't like:
Seems I will have to go through this list filtering for user to put the observations on the iMapInvasive project, and I'll have to go user by user and observation by observation... and it will give me observations that are already on the iMapInvasive project as well as those that are not. There is the "find suitable observations" tool, but I can't figure out why it thinks half the things on there should be in the project. Also if I'm going to spend time sorting through data to find suitable things to enter, I would like them to be the most important things, so this seems to be the best way of going about that.

I'd never much thought about the damage feral cats do, but I'm starting to think they should be limited with a heavier hand. Seems like I've seen too many instances of cat prey on here. Here's an example...
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/69623442

I was wondering where I might see a flying squirrel and did an "explore" to find out. Good thing that I won't have to travel far for the southern species. Bad thing that the northern species is endangered... Cats can't be helping.

I've been going with my gut for most of my poison ivy identifications, but recently had a correction - apparently I haven't really differentiated between vines with roots on them.
Here's one source.
https://natlands.org/mariton-poison-ivy-and-virginia-creeper/

Virginia creeper germinating
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/46423097