“If we love this land enough to save it, we must love it enough to study it.”
Aldo Leopold,
pioneer of nature and environmental conservation
Research into the living world and the nature that surrounds it has led to a wealth of new knowledge, much of which highlights global changes and the rapid loss of biodiversity. The widespread loss of habitats and the populations that inhabit them may seem like insurmountable challenges, but this is far from the truth.
With the development of technology for large-scale data collection and storage, citizen science projects have flourished, allowing anyone to contribute to a better understanding and protection of nature. Today, field observations from volunteers are used to enhance scientific research and conservation planning. These valuable data would be extremely difficult to gather without the extensive help of volunteers, and they are made available to the public through various platforms, such as EuroBirdPortal.
Thanks to volunteer efforts, scientists have been able to:
- Record changes in bird breeding caused by climate change (Dunn & Winkler, 1999)
- Track sudden increases and declines in bird populations (Hochachka et al., 1999)
- Study the impact of habitat and food availability on different bird species (Koenig et al., 2009; Hames et al., 2002)
- Identify rare species in specific areas and improve their protection (Backstrom et al., 2023)
Collaboration and communication between experts and citizens are crucial for conserving the nature we love and depend on. Your notes and observations can give a significant boost to our future projects!
How to Get Involved?
Personal nature observations are especially valuable when entered into online databases.
Fauna.hr is a database designed for use in Croatia, operating as part of a wider European network for collecting animal data. You can contribute to this database easily using a mobile phone via the NaturaList app.
NaturaList is an application that allows users to easily record observations of different groups of animals. Your submitted data, along with that of other users, is available on fauna.hr, providing insight into the distribution and abundance of various species.
In addition to single observations, NaturaList also enables the submission of complete observation lists.
Complete lists, i.e. records of every species observed during a visit to an area, represent the most useful form of data. Using data collected this way, scientists can gain new insights into bird behavior, ecology, and movements.
Guides are available to help you with installation and app use: