Pollinator Hotshots are field research crews that travel to National Parks and other protected areas all over the world to conduct pollinator inventories and habitat assessments.  The Hotshots spend summers traversing these lands photographing and identifying these fantastic species, snapping pictures of cool insects and gorgeous plants!  We upload observations to iNaturalist, a biodiversity research platform where you can share observations with other citizen scientists across the globe.  By getting a baseline reading of the pollinators on our protected lands, we’ll then be able to devise plans to help protect and preserve them.

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Top: Hotshots in Yellowstone National Park; Middle: Hotshots in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington; Bottom: Hotshots in Huascaran National Park, Peru. All photos taken in 2017. Photo Credits: Mahin Jalakhan and Gillian Bowser. 

 

If you are curious about our Pollinator Hotshot efforts and think you want to get involved, check out parkpollinators.org to learn about ways to engage, serve as a citizen scientist and spend some time identifying these amazing pollinators.