Parks Need Permission to Let Citizens Track Wildlife via Apps
Published Date: 12/5/2025
Notice
Summary
The National Park Service wants to keep using web and mobile apps to collect info during citizen science events in parks. This renewal means volunteers and visitors will keep sharing data easily through their phones or computers. If you have thoughts, speak up by February 3, 2026—no cost changes, just smoother science fun!
Analyzed Economic Effects
2 provisions identified: 1 benefits, 1 costs, 0 mixed.
Continued Use of Citizen Science Apps
The National Park Service will keep using web and mobile apps (for example, iNaturalist, eBird, Geoforms, PictureThis, Nature ID) to collect observations during NPS-sponsored citizen science events. The collection covers an estimated 15,500 annual respondents and 187,500 annual responses and will make submitted species observations immediately available to parks and others interested in species identification.
Estimated Time Burden for Respondents
Participation is voluntary and has no non-hour monetary cost, but each response is estimated to take 5 minutes. The collection totals an estimated 15,625 annual burden hours across respondents.
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Key Dates
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