My Involvement in Project Noah

 Nature & Wildlife Site

Northern Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans melanota) Foley Mountain Conservation Area, Ontario, Canada. Featured on the Project Noah Facebook page on November 7th, 2024.

About the Project

Project Noah is an award-winning software platform designed to help people connect with the natural world and learn about wildlife. Launched out of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in early 2010, the project began as an experiment to mobilize citizen scientists and build a digital butterfly net for the 21st century. The original Project Noah platform was founded by Yasser Ansari, Martin Ceperley, Peter Horvath, and Bruno Kruse with support from New York University and the Joan Ganz Conney Center.

Participation

I have been an active member on the Project Noah community website pretty much since its inception in 2010. I first learned of the site from my participation in the National Geographic Your Shot global photo community. "NOAH" is an acronym for "Networked Organisms And Habitats" and the original concept was to use your mobile phone to document spottings of wildlife on your adventures in the wilderness. In the beginning it was a phone app both for the Apple iPhone and Android operating system that you could download to your phone which was appealing to me since back then I was using my HTC Desire HD an Android Smart Phone to photograph my spottings and contributions. 

Orange Mycena (Mycena leaiana) Georgian Bay Islands National Park of Canada, Lake Huron, Beausoleil Island, Ontario, Canada. September 1st, 2011.

The above photo was a featured spotting on the Noah site for a good part of 2011 when I made the most contributions to the network and was displayed prominently on the Mushroom Mission page. Now only my squirrel spottings are popular on the site ranking quite high in the Squirrel Mission.

American Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) Jack Pine Trail, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
March 20th, 2016.

My most popular capture to be featured with 42 likes and showcased on the Frans De Wall - Public Page on Facebook was a wonderful encounter with Black-tailed Jackrabbit, the image went viral and was popping up all over the place. Two artist requested to paint the creature with the big ears, one from California and another from British Columbia. 

Black-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada,
United States. Ramsar site no. 347. April 20th, 2016.

You can see that 2016 was a very good year for me in my nature photography hobby. The Jackrabbit was photographed with a Nikon Coolpix S9900 and with those big ears out like that was not concerned about my proximity or my presence. It will ever be the most rewarding encounters I have come across in the wild.

Writing Stories

Currently the Project Noah Wildlife Community has undergone a transformation being relaunched and redesigned showcasing the photography more than ever. It's with this refresh, I have found a new way to contribute to the site not only as a spotter but as a sponsor and writer. In a new section called Stories I am writing articles about what interests me and what I like to share with the community. Story number one was about Ramsar Convention : Wetlands of International Importance explaining what it is all about and how I participate in the Convention.

Northern Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans melanota) Baie de les grenouilles, Lac Saint-François National Wildlife Area, Quebec, Canada. Ramsar site no. 361. September 1st, 2012.

My second story proved to be so very popular with the Project Noah Support team they congratulated me on the story and featured it on the Project Noah Homepage. The topic of the story was my favourite place to visit : Algonquin Provincial Park of Ontario and I was so very happy that they liked and featured my story. Now I just have to figure out what to write about next but I am sure to figure out something as I now embark on a new career of Freelance Writing ...

Original Park boundaries of 1893.