Special 50th JAM Data Point Photo Contest

In celebration of 50 years of fish and wildlife management coordination among biologists in Arizona and New Mexico, we are upgrading the JAM photo contest to highlight the past and the future of our field.

One of the ways we’re doing that is by inviting all entries to also be submitted to this Data Point contest that we hope will showcase one of the many new tools that is now at our disposal: iNaturalist.org.

We created the 50th Joint Annual Meeting Data Point Photo Contest project on iNaturalist.org to host this Data Point contest. For an image to be eligible, a print must be submitted to one of the main contest categories: Wild Mammals, Wild Birds, Reptiles and Amphibians, Wild Fish and Invertebrates, Landscape, Caught in the Act, Historic Caught in the Act, Remote Cams, or NextGen; and a digital version must be submitted as an observation to iNaturalist and shared with this project (which limits entries to observations from AZ & NM).

When submitting a record for the contest, users will be prompted to select a Data Points category for consideration: Rare Birds & Stranger Things, Keeping Common Species Common, or Invasive Procedures & Feral Terrors. For a description of the considerations for these categories please refer to the “About” section of the project web/mobile application.

Winners will be selected by a panel (not all conference attendees) that will evaluate records on both the quality of the image and the value of the data point. There will NOT be any cash prizes for this Data Points contest, but winning records will be shared at the JAM banquet and featured on the websites and social media outlets of iNaturalist.org and the partner chapters of TWS and AFS. Look for another flyer that explains the special Historic Caught-in-the-Act, Remote Cams, and NextGen categories for the print contest.