The University of Maryland’s Chesapeake DolphinWatch project is marking ten years of participatory science. More than 20,000 people have used the app to report more than 12,000 bottlenose dolphin sightings, giving researchers a much richer picture of where and when dolphins appear in the Bay.
The data does not yet tell scientists exactly how many dolphins live there, because the same animals can be seen more than once and reporting changes with the seasons. That limitation is part of the story: a community can help researchers ask better questions, then improve the way those questions are answered.