State Parks

TPWD Biologist Becomes iNaturalist All-Star

Whether he’s exploring a state park or visiting the park down the street from his house, Sam Kieschnick documents the wild plants, animals and fungi he sees there using the popular nature app iNaturalist. Last summer, Kieschnick, an urban wildlife biologist for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, completed his 100,000th observation, scoring him a spot as one of the top 10 iNaturalist users in the world.

Over the past almost eight years, Kieschnick, whose username is @sambiology, has made at least one observation each day. He’s now up to 105,374 total observations, including 9,663 unique species. He’s also helped the community as a volunteer curator, identifying species in 582,160 posts by other users.

“I’m just bonkers about iNaturalist,” Kieschnick says. “It's just such a powerful tool, and I think it's really fun.”

The app, which was started by four University of California at Berkeley students in 2008, is now a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. Users can upload photos and descriptions of organisms they have observed. People don’t have to know what the organism is before uploading — if they can’t identify the species, the iNaturalist community can help.

“People ask me, ‘What are the rules? What’s the right way to use it?’” Kieschnick says. “Really, however it helps you engage with nature is the right way to use it.”

Professionally, the app helps Kieschnick learn the names of local species and figure out which ones are native and which are invasive. By looking at what species have been documented in certain parks, he can better advise public land managers on best practices.

iNaturalist observations with sufficient information are shared with scientific data repositories such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, which scientists use in their research.

“It feels a little bit like a game, but at the same time we’re contributing meaningful data,” Kieschnick says.

“I also use it — and this is where the power I think comes from — to get folks engaged with nature,” Kieschnick says. “That’s where I start seeing some meaningful changes in public policy and land management.”

On a more personal note for Kieschnick, learning about nature through the app has helped deepen his connection to Texas’ natural environment.

“When I use iNaturalist, what I once called a weed or a bug or a beetle, I find out its real name, and it changes the relationship that I have with that critter,” he says. “It becomes my neighbor, rather than just a little innocuous thing. Once you start to recognize some of these familiar faces, it does something to you. It feels kind of like a family reunion when you go to a park, and that's meaningful.”