For at least the past eight years, TWRA has been monitoring Lake Sturgeon catches by recreational fishermen by asking folks that catch a sturgeon to call a TWRA employee. By all accounts this has been a successful program, but has required an increasing amount of staff time as the number of sturgeon being caught increases. We're happy that this is becoming a problem!
The Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute is trying to create a reporting system for Lake Sturgeon sightings by fishermen. One option is to use the existing platform iNaturalist (
https://www.inaturalist.org/), since it is easy to upload photos and other locality information. However, users would be required to create a separate login. Another option is a short webform on the Aquarium website, but you wouldn’t be able to upload photos and there would be less information associated with the catch. Aquarium staff are afraid that creating a separate login might prevent people from reporting the information, though they’d prefer using the iNaturalist system -- if you're not familiar with it, it's a great site! As far as I know, there will still be a certificate of appreciation issued for each report regardless of which reporting scheme gets used.
Do you have a preference? If you were to catch a Lake Sturgeon, would a certificate of appreciation be enough of an incentive to login to iNaturalist to report it?
Many thanks.
Lake Sturgeon monitoring and a request for your opinion...
