Use the iNaturalist API to pull or document species observations for a pre-clearing biological survey
domain: inaturalist.org · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Use the iNaturalist REST API (api.inaturalist.org) to query existing public observations for the project's area of interest, filtering by taxon and location
Where field staff will document species during a walkthrough, have them log observations through the iNaturalist app/website so they're available via the same API for the project record
Respect API rate-limit guidance (roughly 1 request per second, up to about 10,000 requests per day) and use pagination (page/per_page) for large result sets, up to the roughly 10,000-result cap per query
For any programmatic access requiring a user's private/precise location data, implement iNaturalist's OAuth2 flow rather than relying on public unauthenticated endpoints
Cross-reference iNaturalist findings with the project's USFWS IPaC official species list rather than treating either source alone as a complete pre-clearing species assessment
Known gotchas
iNaturalist observation data is crowd-sourced and coverage-dependent - absence of observations in an area is not proof of species absence, and it is not a regulatory-grade survey
Precise location data for sensitive/at-risk species is often obscured or private on iNaturalist by design, requiring authenticated access (and the observer's consent) to get exact coordinates
Exceeding the documented rate limits (roughly 1 req/sec, ~10k/day) can get an integration throttled or blocked - build in request pacing
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