A Plea to Naturalists, Ditch Facebook for Inaturalist
Facebook has become a repository for many specific interests and naturalists have found and made countless pages dedicated to Animal Identification and discussions of Ecology and Natural History. For a company that faces mounting criticism of its negative influence on politics and society I suppose it is at least uplifting to know that some of its users are discussing ideas that are more positive and productive. But even in this space Facebook is less than ideal. The main issue is that the data is not compiled in a helpful way for gathering and sharing.
Lets think of all the specific and arcane group pages on Facebook that specialize in specific areas of Natural History or Ecology. Two that I have used include East African Snakes, Other Reptiles and Amphibians and The Arthropods and Other Invertebrates of East Africa. Both have been great resources for me to identify obscure species. The issue with Facebook though is that the information is not compiled in a way that is easily accessed by biologists, conservationists or land managers. Inaturalist on the other hand, uses the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to provide open access to their data. This has huge implications for understanding eco-systems and endangered species. It is a service that has been designed by scientists to make the world a more livable and enjoyable place. Nobody is becoming a billionaire at Inaturailst.
If you use Facebook to record your nature sightings continue to do so (if you must - ashamedly, I still do sometimes ) but please do consider also uploading your observations to Inaturalist so that your valuable information can inform a better understanding of our planet. What you see out there is of great value so don’t squander the opportunity to use the best of the internet (opensource) to battle against the worst of internet (facebooksource). Ask yourself; what would Luke Skywalker do?
