fauna canada

your wild

it started with a roadtrip

01

0 1 . I N S P I R A T I O N0 4 . E C O C R O W D S O U R C I N G0 5 . I N T R O D U C I N G FA U N A0 6 . M I S S I O N S T A T E M E N T0 7 . F I LT E R S 0 8 . F E A T U R E S0 9 . T H E S T O R Y 1 1 . T H E I N T E R FA C E

I went on a lot o f in terest ing summer vacat ions when I was younger. To F l in F lon, Mani toba where the sewage runs above the st reets because i t s i ts on the Canadian Shie ld. To Sal t Spr ing Is land where ret i red h ipp ies make houses out of g lass bot t les.

For each t r ip, we packed the four us, our dog, and the k i tchen s ink in to the t ruck and t ra i le r and head out . I guess my mom and dad thought spending 8 hours in the backseat of a p ickup t ruck would make my brother and I eventua l ly get a long.

My parents were a lso the k ind to d isa l low any sor t o f technology in the car, which la ter we found out was probably a good idea as i t turns out I get incredib ly car-s ick. No gameboys, no movies, no v id-eo games, bas ica l ly noth ing “ fun” as my young se l f has thought for a very long t ime.

I would pass the t ime e i ther tak-ing p ictures of my brother s leep-ing (he’ l l get marr ied one day hopefu l ly ) , or look ing for wi ld l i fe . We went to Br i t ish Columbia and nor thern Saskatchewan of ten and we would a lways keep t rack of the an imals that we saw; what k ind they were, how many and so on. We never recorded anyth ing leg i t imate ly, but I come f rom a very compet i t i ve fami ly and even though i t wasn’ t rea l ly a compet i -t ion, there was st i l l some k ind of ta l ly invo lved.

Someone would shout “DEER” or “MOOSE,” my brother jo l ted awake, my mom screamed for the camera and my dad t r ied to s low our t ruck-and-t ra i le r down.

No mat ter how many t imes we saw a deer or an eagle, i t was st i l l a lways an exc i t ing moment, to see an an imal ex is t ing some-where outs ide of a zoo or a con-

t ro l led env i ronment.i t cou ld be a fami ly of fox (one of which came up to our car-door wi th a dead rat in i t ’s mouth) , a pa i r o f moose st ro l l ing through the middle of town in Waskes iu or a t roupe of B ig Horn Sheep mak-ing i t very d i f f icu l t for weekend t rave l le rs to get to the i r vacat ion homes and crack open a co ld one.

Fast- forward a couple years and even though my parents have a l lowed a Nintendo DS to pass the i r threshold, I s t i l l f ind mysel f s tar ing out the window l ike I ’ve a lways done.

I t would of been n ice to ca l l out someth ing rather than “B IRD” i f I saw someth ing f lapping i t ’s wings, or “SNAKE” i f someth ing was s l i ther ing across the road.

Canada is home to thousands of fasc inat ing species, and I prob-

ably know the actua l names to about 5 of them, I d idnt know that apparent ly there are 14 other types of woodpeckers than the one bor ing a ho le through my house at the moment. My Dad has another name for i t , but I h igh ly doubt i t would pass in any sc ient i f ic l i te rature.

Of ten, whi le t r y ing to f igure out in format ion on a cer ta in species, I become f rust rated wi th the abundance of text-based ency-c lopedias or databases. I usua l-ly end up typ ing “ la rge, brown, annoy ing and loud b i rd wi th long wings and large feet” in to a search engine and hoping for the best . You’d be surpr ised how of-ten the Looney Tunes roadrunner rears i t ’s ug ly head.

A l l mammals, f ish, b i rds, amphib-ians, l i zards and inver t ibrates can

be seperated in to n ice and neat groups depending on d i f ferent character is t ics.

Take our winged f r iends for ex-ample. B i rds can be grouped in to many dynamic categor ies de-pending on the i r phys ica l charac-ter is t ics; beaks (cracker, shred-der etc) , feet (grasper, perch etc) , p lumage, s ize, habi ta t , d ie t , co lour etc.

Th is is the same wi th mammals, f ish, amphib ians, l i zards & inver t-ibrates. Even categor iz ing in to co lour groups could be the d i f fer-ence between ca l l ing someth ing a Nor thern F l icker or a W i l l iam-son’s Sapsucker.

I t a lso depends on which area of Canada you f ind yourse l f in . You don’ t f ind At lant ic Puf f ins perched in t rees in the Borea l

Forest just l ike you don’ t f ind Dal l ’s Porpoises swimming in Mo-ra ine Lake. Di f ferent species are nat ive to d i f ferent reg ions of the count r y.

An imal ident i f icat ion can be s impl i f ied and i t doesn’ t have to be a monopoly of b i rd-watchers, sc ient is t and b io logy students. There is a des i re to learn and d iscover that ex is ts wi th in every-one.

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We l ive in an age where the idea of crowdsourc ing has become mainst ream. People ask ing other people for suppor t o f the i r ideas; f inanc ia l ly or not , i t seems eas ier to ask the in terwebs for money than a la rge man in an expens ive i ta l ian su i t .

So, why not have a crowdsourc-ing research app?

Ecolog ica l researchers spend weeks in the f ie ld t rack ing an imal movements, p lot t ing habi ta ts and other behav iour in order to make recommendat ions and deve lop p lans for wi ld l i fe conservat ion. In 2011 the London Zoolog i-ca l Society deve loped an app that ut i l i zed the publ ic domain to ident i f i y an imal species that

ecoCROWDSOURCING

ra ised by crowd-sourcing websites in 2013$5.1B

5.9%of global crowd-funding efforts in 2013 were environ-mental based

1 millioncrowdsourcing campaigns were successful ly completed in 2012

CROWDSOURCING:obtain (information or input into a particular task or project) by enlisting the services of a number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the Internet.

appeared on the i r mot ion cap-ture cameras in count r ies around the wor ld. Researchers are ab le to co l lect the i r in format ion many t imes faster than i t would take them i f they were to s i f t through the footage themselves.

The idea is to have a non-f inan-c ia l based crowdsourc ing appl i -cat ion. An app that ut i l i zes publ ic knowledge to t rack, ident i fy and l is t species that they have wi t -nessed in the Canadian wi ld.

The data is sent to the appropr i -ate researchers and they are ab le to get a nat iona l snapshot of the an imal s i tuat ion.

ht tp://www.zs l .org/conser vat ion- in i t ia t i ves/con-ser vat ion- technology/ instant-wi ld

ht tp://www.crowdsourc ing.org/edi tor ia l /crowd-funding- indust r y- t rends-and-stat is t ics- in fo-graphic/25662

welcome to your wild

FAUNA Canada is a research crowd-sourc ing wi ld l i fe spot t ing appl icat ion for the iPad and iPad Min i . An in teract ive in ter face that a l lows the user to exper ience the Canadian wi ld in a way that is both non- int ru-s ive and eco-f r iendly.

Users can reg is ter a s ight ing and t rack the i r w i ld exper iences through severa l un ique features that are im-p lemented in FAUNA.

FAUNA a lso ex is ts as a v isua l-based encyc lopedia of the Canadian eco-system where users can d iscover new species every day.

Register your s ight ing, discover new species& record your exper iences.

FAUNA reduces the occurence of “ tour is t hunt ing” by on ly re leas ing the locat ion of an imal s ight ings to associated researchers in the f ie ld. In format ion ava i lab le to the genera l publ ic can on ly v iew a genera l area or habi ta t v iew of the an imal in ques-t ion.

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FAUNA refers to the user ’s wi ld l i fe spot t ing h is tory as the i r “wi ld.” I t ’s the i rs , i t ’s what they have exper ienced, just l ike the wi ld l i fe of Canada is the i r ’s to he lp and pro-tect . The preservat ion and future of b iod ivers i ty is in our hands. The user has a sense of ownersh ip, the wi ld l i fe doesn’ t just ex is t , i t is a par t o f the wor ld that we l ive in. Researchers work t i re less ly in conservat ion ef for ts around the count r y every day. They co l lect data, co l la te resources, moni tor an imal populat ions and behav iour.amongst many other th ings. Conservat ion is an issue that a f fects us r ight now. There are cur rent ly 95 species on Canada’s endangered l is t w i th more be ing cons idered and rev iewed every day.

FAUNA addresses these issues in d i f fe rent ways. I t runs of f o f a database of every s ing le an imal that is nat ive to Canada. Species are funnel led through hundreds of d i f fe rent f i l te rs based on a wor ldwide standard of an imal character is t ics as wel l as d i f ferent reg ionso of Canada. W i th status and in format ion updated regular ly, FAUNA prov ides an accurate and up-to-date reg is tery of Cana-da’s wi ld l i fe .

THE CYCLE OF NATURE MEANS RESTORING EQUILIBRIUM

humans have to do it.

17 e n d a n g e r e d

12 t h r e at e n e d

14 s p e c i a l c o n c e r n
















mam

mal

sbir

dsre

ptiles

fish

amph

ibian

sin

verti

brat

es

mam

mal

sbir

dsre

ptiles

fish

amph

ibian

sin

verti

brat

es

fur

ears

nose

walk etc

beak

feet

plumage

wing-type

scales

feet

tail

fangs

eyes

feet

jump

skin

fin

tail

scales

teeth

wings

legs

shell

eyes

F I LT E R SBelow is out l ined the major i ty of the f i l te rs that FAUNA uses to organ ize an imals in the reg is t r y.

AN

IMA

LS

s p e c i f i cg e n e r a l

colour

habitat

diet

siZe

REGI

ON

p h y s i o g r a p h i c

cordillian region

interior plains

st. lawrence lowlands

appalachian region

hudson bay lowlwands

canadian shield

arctic lowlands

innuitian region

f o r e s t

acadian

aspen parkland

boreal

carolinian

coast

columbian

great lakes

montaine

subalpine

taiga

e c o Z o n e s

arctic cordilieranorthern arcticsouthern arctictaiga plainstaiga shieldboreal shieldatlantic maritimemixedwoodplainsboreal plainsprairiestaiga cordillieraboreal cordillierapacific maritimemontaine cordillirahudson plians

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F E AT U R ESD A S H B O A R DAfter logging in, the dashboard is landing page of the in ter face. Based on e i ther se l f - input ted or GPS loca-t ion in format ion, the landing page var ies depending on the user ’s loca-t ion wi th in Canada.

Th is locat ion d ictates the in format ion pr imar i ly d isp layed. For example, i f you are in southern A lber ta, the dashboard is not go ing to show a p icture of an At lant ic Puf f in on the b i rd but ton, i t may show a Burrowing Owl or a B lue Jay instead.

The dashboard is the main nav iga-t ion of the in ter face. A le f t hand s ide menu d isp lays opt ions commonly found in appl icat ions; about , set t ings etc. I t a lso has the opt ion to se lect your “wi ld” and the user ’s h is to-

r y. The r ight s ide of the screen is reserved for reg ion-speci f ic in forma-t ion. In format ion on the number of nat ive species, phys iographic reg ion, forest reg ion and ecozone can be found here.

The user can tap each box to d iscov-er more in format ion. By tapping the nat ive species por t ion, the user is taken to an in ter face wi th an in terac-t ive, data v isua l izat ion based snap shot of ind igenous species, seper-ated in to categor ies on one, easy to v iew page.

I f the user is not look ing for any an imal in par t icu lar, they can use th is too l in order to d iscover more about the i r reg ion.

I f the need ar ises to ident i fy an an imal , the user ut l i zes the bot tom por t ion of the in ter face. Th is bot tom por t ion is the an imal qu ick-v iew. By tapping e i ther c lass, the user is d i -rected to that sect ion of the reg is t r y.P ictures on the but tons are accurate to the reg ion and vary day- to-day. Th is is to foster an env i ronment that encourages d iscovery. I f you see the same p icture every day under the “ Inver t ibrate” but ton, you’ l l get used to i t . By keeping a dynamic env i ron-ment, the user has the oppor tun i ty to bas ica l ly learn someth ing new every-t ime they open FAUNA.

A N I M A L T I L E SOnce the user has se lected the type of an imal that they choose, they are d i rected to the Animal T i le in ter face.

Th is in ter face is a lso dynamic, sh i f t -ing and changing depending on user input . The major i ty of the in ter face is ut l i zed by the an imal photo t i les, whi le a smal ler s ide-bar menu is where the user- input happens.

The menu has d i f ferent sectors. The f i rs t is the genera l in format ion; th is is where the reg ion in format ion and an imal type are l is ted.

The next sect ion is the an imal f i l te rs. Th is is a un ique feature of FAUNA. Based on the type of an imal , a l l f i l -ters are v isua l based. Colour is ind i-cated as the actua l co lour, beak s ize of fers anatomica l ly cor rect drawings of the d i f ferent types and feet type would do the same th ing.

I f the user can make a v isua l match based on these images, they tap the r ight one and i t is automat ica l ly entered as one of the i r f i l te rs.

I f the user is unsure about which one to choose, they can p ick the “?” but-ton which causes summar ies of each character is t ic to appear.

Once the user has star ted to chose the i r se lected f i l te rs, the in ter face wi l l change. An imals that no lon-ger f i t that category are pushed fur ther down the l is t , whi le an imals that share those character is t ics are moved to the top. Addi t iona l ly, an i -mals that are common to that geo-graphica l reg ion appear la rger.

Th is in ter face a l lows for a s impl i f ied and accurate an imal ident i f icat ion process whi le a lso educat ing user ’s on d i f ferent an imal types and fea-tures.

Y O U R W I L DYour W i ld is another un ique feature of FAUNA.

Hypothet ica l ly, Your W i ld is your own wi ld l i fe reg is t r y that ut i l i zes rea l t ime input and data v isua l izat ion.

The user can v iew everyth ing that they have spot ted on th is in ter face.

Depending on what they want to see they can f i l te r i t in d i f fe rent ways. They can choose on ly to v iew mam-mals, or on ly choose to v iew an imals that they ’ve seen in Western Canada.

Your W i ld a lso ut l i zes a un ique push-not i f icat ion too l . Users that are v iewing an imals but haven’ t seen them can set a ler ts. These push-no-t i f icat ions a ler t the user i f they have entered a zone where s ight ings are common or the habi ta t o f that par t ic-u lar an imal .

08

THE STORY09

A mother and her young daugh-ter are walk ing in F ish Creek Park. I t ’s May and i t has f ina l ly stopped snowing. The blue jay’s are s inging, the rabbi ts are changing colour, the forest is s lowly beginning to wake up f rom i t ’s pro longed winter rest .

She spots movement in the forest , a rust le and then the fami l iar sound of f lapping wings. On the s ide of the t ree a b i rd appears.

The mother th inks that i t is a wood-pecker, whi le her daughter is re la-t ive ly preoccupied with a p iece of wood she’s found on the ground.

There is something about h is b i rd, i t ’s st range. A mohawk l ike p lumage juts out f rom the top of i t ’s head and i t seems to hang effort less ly on the bark of the o ld b i rch t ree. She not ices that i t seems s l ight ly large to be a standard woodpecker whi le i t fur ious ly pounds away at the b i rch.

The mother is puzz led and wants to f ind out what k ind of b i rd she is looking at because she knows that i t wi l l bother her for the rest of the day. The last t ime she t r ied to search for a certa in species of b i rd, she gave up on Google before she even got past the colour of i t ’s feathers.

The mother has recent ly download-ed FAUNA on her iPad so she pul ls i t out of her day-pack. She’s a l ready s igned up and has begun to bui ld her wi ld.

Af ter logging in, the fami l iar “south-ern Alberta” dashboard appears. Noth ing has changed, Alberta is st i l l semi-ar id and in the grass lands, a l though she did learn the other day that A lberta is home to about 120 species of nat ive mammals.

I t ’s an unusual ly large b i rd wi th pr i -mar i ly red p lumage. I t ’s beak seems to be being used as a probe to eat ants one-by-one off of the bark. I t ’s feet are interest ing, they are able to hold on to the t ree with surpr is-ing dexter i ty and there is an awk-ward looking back toe that seems re lat ive ly out of p lace. by us ing an unusual ly long back toe

She taps the BIRD sect ion of the inter face and the p ictures of the nat ive b i rds of Southern Alberta f i l l the screen. Bi rds that are more commonly found in the area of F ish Creek appear at the top of the gr id. W ith the informat ion that she has gathered, she is able to se lect the character ist ics f rom the avai lable opt ions.

She is unsure about the feet , wheth-er they are for c l imbing or grasping. By tapping the screen again, more informat ion about the d i fferent types appears below thei r d iagrams. She determines that the feet are too smal l to be graspers, usual ly meant for b i rds-of-prey and that long back toe is actual ly meant for better bal-ance in c l imbing types of b i rds.

As she is choosing her charac-ter ist ics, the t i les are moving and changing. Af ter se lect ing red, the l ikes of the Burrowing Owl and Bel ted Kingf isher are start ing to d issapear. The beak is a probe which means the Cardina l and Robin d issapear.

The t i les cont inue to sh i f t and change unt i l she is le f t wi th 12 pho-tos . The part icu lar species associ-ated with her area of the prov ince are shown larger, making v isual d ist inct ion more eff ic ient . She spots feathers poking out f rom the head of one and makes a per fect match.

She’s looking at a Pi leated Wood-pecker, the largest species of woodpecker in North Amer ica at around 19 inches. They have a large enough populat ion to be considered as less of a concern than i t ’s ivo-ry b i l led cousins. I t ’s d iet consists most ly of ants l ike the ones that i t is eaten f rom the ins ide of the t ree.

She wants to add th is specimen to her wi ld. Through the v isual-based dashboard, she is able to see that she has spotted 8 out of the 12 woodpeckers, the Pi leated makes i t lucky number 10. A message pops up and i t turns out that a sc ient ist named Dr. Peter Bishop is moni tor-ing Pi leated Woodpecker populat ion and behaviour in areas surround-ed by human habi tat ion, much l ike the F ish Creek. The deta i ls of her spott ing have been noted and the researcher wi l l receive the informa-t ion.

She turns to her daughter who is now busy poking the d i r t wi th her st ick and looking at the gorund. She shares with her some new informa-t ion, th is part icu lar type of b i rd is specia l , i t ’s beak a l lows i t to eat the bugs, i t ’s feet let i t c l imb and i t spends i t ’s days making holes, oh and i t ’s lat in name is Hylatomus pi leatus.

The g i r l puts her st ick down and looks up, she sees the woodpecker and g iggles at i t ’s mohawk.

They start to walk down the path again and the g i r l is gaz ing into the t rees and the grass hoping to catch a f lut ter of wings or a rust le of feet .

11

THE I

NTER

FACE

LOCATIONDepending on ei ther your in-putted locat ion or GPS based locat ion, the homescreen is di f ferent de-pending on where you are.

REGION INFOThe front page dashboard con-tains informat ion about the user ’s locat ion. The user can tap on the subject to learn more. For example, the amount of each type of animal are nat ive to their area.

ANIMAL QUICK VIEWThe bottom por-t ion of the dash-board interface is the animal quickview. I t is seperated into the di f ferent types of animals and has a pic-ture of one that is nat ive to that area. Users can tap on any of the pictures and i t wi l l lead them to the fo l lowing page.

13

WILD GRIDThis is the wi ld gr id, i t is a t i le based interface that responds to user input and f inger move-ment. More f i l ters based on the type of an-imal are avai l -able on the lef t hand side.

ANIMAL FEATURESDepending on which char-acter ist ic the user chooses, the opt ions wi l l s l ide out f rom the selector. Icons are v isual so the user can make a quick v isual match to the animal they are looking at and the physical port ion dis-played on the interface.

MORE INFOI f the user has the t ime, or the desire to learn more about the di f ferent types of parts, they can tap the “?” button and more informat ion about the uses or dist inguish-ing marks wi l l s l ide out f rom the images.

THE TILESDepending on the character-ist ics chosen, there could be 1 or hundreds of species ident i -f ied. The image t i les s l ide and move depending on where you are and which f i l ters that you choose. For ex-ample in North-ern Manitoba there is only one bird that is whi te, large, has a shredding beak and grasp-ing claws; the Snow Owl.

15

THE TILESHere is anoth-er interface designed with di f ferent f i l ters implemented. In th is case the user would be able to ident i -fy the speci f ic woodpecker they may be viewing.

ANIMAL INFOOnce the user has ident i f ied the animal, they can select to v iew more infor-mat ion.

ANIMALDASHBOARDThe animal dash-board mimics the main dashboard. Important infor-mat ion such as status, populat ion, diet and size are on the r ight hand side whi le a short summary is on the lef t .

The user can also choose to v iew more informat ion or add an alert . This alert wi l l be a push not i f ica-t ion that alerts the user i f they may have entered an area where s ight-ings of th is animal are common.

17

YOUR WILDI f the user has correct ly ident i -f ied the animal they can add i t to their “wi ld.” Their “wi ld” is a database of the animals that they have seen. The area to se-lect th is opt ion is qui te large so that there would be no search-ing for i t i f the user needed to record the info r ight away.

THANK YOUOnce the user has recorded the sight ing, the informat ion is sent to the corresponding researcher. The informat ion is also stored in the user ’s database so that i t can be accessed at a later date. This page also gives the user the opportuni ty to share on social media or emai l .

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