The Deep are the first aquarium to have joined a national British and Irish Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) "Spotted on Site Campaign, with leading zoos and aquariums around the UK.
The campaign ‘The Deep & Biodiversity’ is a collaboration with iNaturalist UK and the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) which aims to assess biodiversity of its zoo and aquarium members to demonstrate just how they are involved in maintaining native biodiversity.
So come on all you budding naturalists out there! Get snapping those beasties as you are walking through the grounds and see just how much flora and fauna you can find when you visit The Deep!
You may have already heard of iNaturalist, an app which can be downloaded on a mobile phone/tablet. Simply take photos of any animal or a plant in the iNaturalist app or on your phone (you ca upload it to the website anytime). The app will then come up with some suggestions of what it might be, record where you took the photo and plot it on a map.
Once uploaded, experts all over the world can verify your photos and it could be used in conservation research! There are 2.3 million observers across the world all collecting photos and over 358,000 species have already been recorded.
This is a great opportunity for The Deep’s visitors to contribute to a massive, worldwide biodiversity information database.