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Citizen Science Day Highlights Need For Volunteers

National Park Service

April 13 is national Citizen Science Day and a DNR leader hopes more people join as volunteers.

Eva Lewandowski is a conservation biologist with DNR's Natural Heritage Conservation Program.

She says Wisconsin's long tradition of volunteers partnering with professional scientists to help monitor natural resources by participating in one of dozens of projects to collect information on Wisconsin's wildlife, lakes and rivers and other natural resources...

"..It's an incredibly important way to expand the capacity of science in monitoring. To bring in new boots on the ground, new ideas, people who are familiar with the landscape. At the Wisconsin DNR we have over 20 different citizen-science monitoring programs that we coordinate. So we have a very successful track record of partnering with the public..."

Already, people have pledged 2,400 hours to volunteer this year as part of a pledge drive celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Wisconsin Citizen-based Monitoring (WCBM) Network. The network is a collaboration of over 190 projects and groups working to improve the effectiveness of volunteer monitoring efforts. The program began in 2004.

Lewandowski says volunteers are critical to getting more work done...

"We have projects that have hundreds, and in a few cases, thousands of volunteers. It's just not really feasible to have that many DNR employees also. So we're able to get people out at different times and different places to supplement the work DNR staff are doing..."

She says volunteer contributions have led to new county records for rare bumble bees and frogs, documented population declines in bats, and been used to determine the impairment status of lakes and rivers.

More information is on the DNR website.

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