ProFaunaBaja — Mexico (2014)

ProFaunaBaja is a society for scientists, students, and naturalists who share a common goal: to conserve biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystems in Baja California Sur, Mexico. The 2014 SWOT grant will be used to create a citizen science-monitoring project to facilitate the collection of in-water sea turtle spatial data from the hundreds of foreign boaters that arrive in the area annually.

ProFaunaBaja will undertake capacity-building workshops for boaters and will pilot test the I-naturalist integrated mobile phone application for use by citizen science participants. The pilot study will be used to determine the design of a new mobile phone application that boaters can use to share sightings. Boaters will provide the date, species ID, age range, habitat substrate type, depth (using depth finders), approximate abundance, and GPS coordinates.