Preview of "💩The Fells Dog Poop-Bag Mapping Project"!

[Claire O'Neill]

There we go! Preview of a coming project 💩The Fells Poop Mapping Project.

It sounds (and smells) different in nature, but it is also an important one for the sake of protecting biodiversity! 

We've been so shocked by the amount of dog poop (bagged and not) that we encounter every single time we stepped into the Fells that we started to flirt with the idea of creating another kind of mapping project. 

So, I finally got a minute to think about how we'd build this map of the dog poop bags littering the Fells and create a good data layer base map that we could use and communicate to organizations such as the DCR. It also has the potential to also foster soil and water science studies (we'll explain later). 

Someone proposed an iNaturalist project to map all that poop, but that'd be quite unfair to litter (pun intended) our projects with records of bagged and free dog poop: those records would then fall under the iNaturalist category of 'casual' sightings and it would muddle our wild records. 

But a good old Google map would work wonders. Here is the map ready to receive our data 🗺️ Poop Map

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💩 💩 💩 💩  Additionally, nothing beats visuals, right? 

Once we start having a map filled to the rim with poop pics, eventually it might trigger a social response (that's part of the idea).

Soon we'll have a dedicated EwA page with an embedded live map and all. I can't wait to show that to all our friends and partners!!!

I'd like to invite some of you who spend a lot of time in the Fells to think about recording that kind of data too for the good of the Fells, its habitats & inhabitants!

Thanks! 

Cheers, - Claire

[Claire O'Neill]

1) First thing first: we're simplifying the name of the project to 'The Fells Poop Mapping Project'.

A good intriguing name, and a conversation starter. Perfect for now until someone convinces us that another name would be better.

2) With Lisa (one of our Fells CitScientists), we're refining the pics sharing protocol, to make it as easy as possible from a maintenance perspective... So stay tuned!

Here's that map again (with a few more poop bags) > here

 

Cheers, - Claire

[EwA]

We're making progress! We were finally able to get successfully dog poop pics through 2 different channels (with the metadata sticking).

I can see Lisa's pics metadata (transferred through a shared Google album) and I can see Anita's pics metadata (transferred over email).

Next is to find an easy to combine layers so that it simplifies the maintenance work.

Soon we'll have a written down process. So stay tuned. 

I am going grant access to the shared album to those of you who are in. I'll send an invite soon.

Meanwhile here's the updated map > here.

Cheers, - C