What is it? Help to convert the unknown observations! With an insect specialist – entomologist – to answer questions
About this event
Help discover the answer to “what is it?”
About this event
Get together virtually – in attendance will be an insect specialist by the name of Sydney Worthy Entomologist from the City of Saskatoon City of Saskatoon to help with I.D.s on insects which is fantastic!
Join together to make identifications on iNaturalist for the Saskatoon and Area City Nature Challenge.
EVERYONE is welcome to join, you absolutely DO NOT need to be an expert to help with IDs! And it is a great time to learn more about insects, and our insects in Saskatoon and get any insect questions answered as well.
We’ll start off with an introduction on how to identify and will go through some observations together, so join in if you’d like to learn more about how to help with IDs! After that, folks can jump off if they’d like to work on IDs on their own, but we’ll stick around if people would like to share some of the observations they’re coming across or just want to chat more about the City Nature Challenge or insects in general.
We would concentrate on the observations that “require ID” depending on how many people are online.
People can identify something, or ask some questions on various id’s.
Ask for others to confirm an id so that it can be listed as a “Research Grade”
also to help correct false ID’s.
Need assistance identifying your observations or eager to learn how to identify?
Pre-requisites: You will need a computer, laptop, tablet signed into your user name on iNaturalist to take part! or…If you want just to help by watching the zoom screen with your shout outs and questions that is fine also!
It may be easier if you have done some iNaturalist observations on your smartphone ahead of time, but as an someone with questions about insects, as an iNaturalist observer, a beginner, or an experienced specialist scientist all are welcome!
iNaturalist Connect with nature for the City Nature Challenge Saskatoon and Area Défi nature urbaine hosted by the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc.Goldenrod Gall Fly Eurosta solidaginis Conservation Status: imperiled (S2S4) in Saskatchewan, CA (NatureServe)Ranked S2 by SCDC
Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoidesRed-blue Checkered Beetle Trichodes nuttalli on a Missouri Goldenrod
Solidago missouriensis at the afforestation area
Celebrate 50 years! Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional park were planted to trees in 1972, 50 years ago. Come out and say Happy Birthday!
“The City Nature Challenge is an annual, global, community science competition to document urban biodiversity. The challenge is a bioblitz that engages residents and visitors to find and document plants, animals, and other organisms living in urban areas. The goals are to engage the public in the collection of biodiversity data, with three awards each year for the cities that makes the most observations, find the most species, and engage the most people.
Participants primarily use the iNaturalist app and website to document their observations, though some areas use other platforms, such as eBird in Saskatoon. The observation period is followed by several days of identification and the final announcement of winners. Participants need not know how to identify the species; help is provided through iNaturalist’s automated species identification feature as well as the community of users on iNaturalist, including professional scientists and expert naturalists.” [source]
City Nature Challenge CNCYXE Saskatoon area versus YQRCNC Regina and area in a mini SK challengeCity Nature Challenge CNCYXE Saskatoon area versus YQRCNC Regina and area in a mini SK challengeYellow Sunflower Moth
Stiria rugifrons on top of Curlycup Gumweed Grindelia squarrosa
Celebrate 50 years! Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional park were planted to trees in 1972, 50 years ago. Come out and say Happy Birthday!
The YouTube video is online for making identifications on iNaturalist. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to the zoom session. We had inquiries from others who would like to watch this video when it is online, so here is the YouTube Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0qzwlVhiXc
Where that YouTube hints and tips to become an “identifier” and place identifications upon the observations of other people, this YouTube provides hints and tips for making observations in the field so that the question “What is it?” can be answered.
That being said, basically the iNaturalist app is as easy as 1-2-3 to use!
Just download the free iNaturalist app to your smart phone for observations, and sign in.
Find a wild organism in nature.
Snap! Take a picture.
We Need Your Help!
We have just provided some YouTube videos to enhance the nature experience.
City Nature Challenge CNCYXE Saskatoon area versus YQRCNC Regina and area in a mini SK challengeCity Nature Challenge CNCYXECityNatureChallenge CNCYXE
Wildlife Montage. Red Winged Blackbird, White Tailed Deer Fawn, Garter Snake, JackRabbit, Mallard Ducklings, Black Crowned Night Heron
Gifford Pinchot centered on conservation as follows; ” The principles which the word Conservation has come to embody are not many, and they are exceedingly simple. I have had occasion to say a good many times that no other great movement, has ever achieved such progress in so short a time, or made itself felt in so many directions with such vigor and effectiveness, as the movement for the conservation of natural resources.
Forestry made good its position in the United States before the conservation movement was born. As a forester I am glad to believe that conservation began with forestry, and that the principles which govern the Forest Service in particular and forestry in general are also the ideas that control conservation.”
Gifford Pinchot; BA degree from Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University (1899), MA (1901) and LLD (1925) degrees from Yale, MA degree (1904) from Princeton University, ScD degree (1907) from Michigan Agricultural College, LLD degree (1909) from McGill University, LLD degree (1923) from Pennsylvania Military College, and LLD degree (1931) from Temple University. Pinchot was forester and chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Division of Forestry, founded the School of Forestry at Yale University, and also the Society of American Foresters and the National Conservation Association of which he became President. Author of A Primer of Forestry (1899), The Fight for Conservation (1909), The Training of a Forester (1914), and Breaking New Ground, an autobiography (1947).
Pinchot continues about conservation, “In addition to the principles of development and preservation of our resources there is a third principle. It is this: The natural resources must be developed and preserved for the benefit of the many, and not merely for the profit of a few.
The conservation idea covers a wider range than the field of natural resources alone. Conservation means the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time. One of its great contributions is just this, that it has added to the worn and well-known phrase, “the greatest good to the greatest number,” the additional words “for the longest time,” thus recognizing that this nation of ours must be made to endure as the best possible home for all its people.
Conservation advocates the use of foresight, prudence, thrift, and intelligence in dealing with public matters, for the same reasons and in the same way that we each use foresight, prudence, thrift, and intelligence in dealing with our own private affairs. It proclaims the right and duty of the people to act for the benefit of the people. Conservation demands the application of common-sense to the common problems for the common good.
We are prosperous because our forefathers bequeathed to us a land of marvellous resources still unexhausted. Shall we conserve those resources, and in our turn transmit them, still unexhausted, to our descendants? Unless we do, those who come after us will have to pay the price of misery, degradation, and failure for the progress and prosperity of our day. When the natural resources of any nation become exhausted, disaster and decay in every department of national life follow as a matter of course. Therefore the conservation of natural resources is the basis, and the only permanent basis, of national success.
The conservation issue is a moral issue, and the heart of it is this: For whose benefit shall our natural resources be conserved—for the benefit of us all, or for the use and profit of the few? This truth is so obvious and the question itself so simple that the attitude toward conservation of any man in public or private life indicates his stand in the fight for public rights. ”
Saskatoon community volunteers all came together three times for major trash clean ups in the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area in the southwest sector of Saskatoon in 2015 and 2016 to better the environment and promote conservation practices. On March 3 World Wildlife Day, honour the afforestation areas, and continue to monitor, and conserve the semi-wilderness wildlife habitat at the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. Though the volunteers were elated to see 13,100 kilograms (28,875 pounds)123of trash removed from the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and did, indeed come out more than once to clean up the environment, the woodlands and Chappell Marsh West Swale Wetlands. It would surely be wonderful to engage in conservation practices and center community efforts to maintain the wetlands and associated riparian woodlands, and thus honour the semi-wilderness wildlife habitat corridor and not have a repeated need to engage in costly volunteer clean ups.
The vanishing wildlife, its extermination and preservation came to the forefront in the article World Wildlife Day March 3. How can conservation efforts continue past March 3, continue onward after World Wildlife Day to conserve the habitats, forests, wetlands and resources? Find out what you can do.
Take Action WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature (also known as World Wildlife Fund)
Take Action Government of Canada. Environment Canada. About Environment and Climate Change Canada Services The Biosphere BioKits Take Action
What can you do? Government of Canada. BiodivCanada. Education and AwarenessWhat Can You Do?
What you can do WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature (also known as World Wildlife Fund)
“This generation may either be the last to exist in any semblance of a civilised world or that it will be the first to have the vision, the bearing and the greatness to say, ‘I will have nothing to do with this destruction of life, I will play no part in this devastation of the land, I am determined to live and work for peaceful construction for I am morally responsible for the world of today and the generations of tomorrow.’” ~ Richard St Barbe Baker
Seeking the Greatest Good. Pinchot Institute for Conservation. M“The mission of the Pinchot Institute is to strengthen forest conservation thought, policy, and action by developing innovative, practical, and broadly-supported solutions to conservation challenges and opportunities.”
I believe in oneness of mankind and of all living things and in the interdependence of each and all. I believe that unless we play fair to the Earth, we cannot exist physically on this planet. Unless we play fair to our neighbour, we cannot exist socially or internationally. Unless we play fair to better self, there is no individuality and no leadership. ~Richard St. Barbe Baker.
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063 Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map
Please help protect / enhance /commemorate your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail)
Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date!
“I believe that if children fall in love with wildlife they will grow up wanting to protect it.”
― Imogen Taylor
. We have a motto in the Men of the Trees. TWAHAMWE. It is an African word meaning ‘pull together’ and I pass this on to all those concerned with conservation in this country. I would like to call you to silence for a moment with the words of Mathew Arnold:
“Calm soul of all things, make it mine,
To feel amidst the City ‘s jar
That there abides a peace of thine
Men did not make and cannot mar
~Richard St. Barbe Baker
Our task must be to free ourselves … by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.~Albert Einstein
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. George Genereux Urban Regional Park. 