Taiwan’s successful experience of launching citizen science projects for birds
Date Issued
2018-08-19
Author(s)
Abstract
Citizen science is a powerful way to collect data for assessing the state of birds . However, it is essential to cooperate with amateur volunteers effectively . The State of Taiwan’s Birds Partnership, which is composed of governmental departments, academic universities, wild bird societies and amateur birdwatchers, has successfully launched several citizen science projects since 2009, such as Taiwan Breeding Bird Survey, Taiwan New Year Bird Count, Taiwan Roadkill Observation Network, and eBird Taiwan . Facebook, the most popular social media in Taiwan, was the platform to interact with the volunteers, like answering the questions and sharing the latest research . We even utilitised Facebook to collect the data on opportunistic schemes . The volunteers only need to upload their photos with date and location . Moreover, we held many workshops and annual reunions to maintain their passion and motivation . Publishing annual reports is not only an efficient way to encourage the volunteers but also encourages us integrated the data regularly . Our database has accumulated a vast amount of data, for instance, 140,042 complete checklists from 1,602 eBirders and 36,351 roadkill events from 3,526 users . The data of breeding birds have been opened on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and that of migratory birds were shared with the Asian Waterbird Census . In sum, the results were applied to assessing environmental impacts, making policies, and evaluating conservation status; and that is going to be published on a national bird report “The Status of Taiwan’s Bird” in 2020
Event(s)
27th International Ornithological Congess
Publisher
International Ornithologists' Union
Description
Vancouver, Canada
Type
conference paper