Wild

Wild is a collection of verified observations of plants, animals and fungus in our Karamea area. Wild is intended as a learning tool to aid anyone interested in the identification of species in the Karamea area.  The collection was started in July 2021.

The collection includes species sighted from Kahurangi Point to Mōkihinui, and by no means is comprehensive, and does not seek to replace official sources of information.  Where possible we provide links to detailed information about items in the collection.

Think of Wild as a blog, a personal journey of learning and discovery by the observers here.  Each species or group in the collection represents many hours of searching, agonising over identification, learning, making mistakes, unlearning assumptions and asking lots and lots of questions!   There is a great pleasure to be had crawling around in the forest, wondering about some little moss or fungus or some such. Who are you?  What is your story? What about your family? Where do you come from?  Asking these simple questions can lead down unexpected pathways and gradually exposes pieces of the astonishing ecological story of New Zealand.  There is just so much hidden is these little worlds and there are so many little worlds.

Learning does not come easily, or cheaply, and requires work and participation.  Learning is often not possible without great mentors and great feedback.  To this end, for the keen student of observation the communities at iNaturalist NZ, FUNNZ, NZPCN, NZflora and Nelson Botanical Society can be your invaluable friend.

• You will need an iNaturalist NZ account and load observations on iNaturalist NZ.  iNaturalist NZ is fundamentally one of the most effective ways to really learn your stuff.
• Contact us about joining the community.
• If you would like to follow what's going on, sign in or get an account and make sure you are subscribed to "Wild" on the notifications tab at My Account.

• This was started in July 2021.  If you have a particular interest and would like to add stuff, join in!
• Many hundreds of species are present in and around Karamea, however a great number cannot be simply identified from a photo.  For example, many, if not most fungus cannot be identified as a species without DNA work.  Even then, many hundreds or even thousands of fungi will not conform to the general notion of a "species".
• The collection includes a single iNaturalist NZ verified* observation for each item and these are included with the consent of the observers.  Photographs are licensed as CC By-NC, are free to share, but are not to be used for commercial purposes.
• The collection is continuously expanded with the cooperation of our community of local observers.  The more people that participate, the more robust the collection becomes.
• For comprehensive information about various species, see the resources listed under Wild learning tools below.

*verified: not iron clad, but a very good chance it's right!