Crowdsourcing the Birds

There is something fascinating about the animals that live around us. Thousands of people each year travel to different National  Parks trying to spot those animals that they may not see back home. For some, there is a unique fascination with birds. Some people even devote their entire lives to the study of birds.

Scientists have tried for years to count and map the geographical locations of different species of birds. Some of there efforts have proven successful, however, with the development of new technology, they have begun to realize their data may not be as accurate as they once thought. Through an online site called ebird, scientists and other avid bird watchers are able to share information about different species of birds in their area. This site uses a type of crowdsourcing to compile data from different entities around the world. This has allowed scientists to discover new sub-species of birds in a specific location. It has also helped scientists map out the migration patterns of certain birds because of the almost instantaneous information being uploaded via crowdsourcing.

Some scientists believe that allowing "the average joe" to contribute  to sites such as ebird can cause inaccuracies in the information. However, I believe that it gives more accuracy to the site. Qualified scientists cannot be in many places at one time. Allowing avid bird watchers to contribute provides a way for a specific amount of data to be compiled in one area by many people.

So these questions are posed, do you believe that using peoples love for birds is helpful in the composition of the data around the world? Can we take the idea of ebird and apply it to other topics regarding the environment, and find that it contributes more data then that already found by the scientists? What is the benefit to allowing more people to contribute on scientific research?

Crowdsourcing, for the Birds