PARCS en Santé

PARCS en Santé turns park-camera photographs into a citizen-science sorting desk. Volunteers identify animals from Quebec nature parks so researchers can compare biodiversity near the same locations where ticks are sampled, linking a quick wildlife task to a broader One Health study.

What is PARCS en Santé?

The assignment is pleasingly concrete: look at a camera image, decide which animal appears, and help organize the photo set. Behind that modest act is a wider attempt to understand how wildlife communities, white-tailed deer, ticks, and park ecosystems overlap near Quebec cities. The project pages explain where the cameras sit, why tick sampling happens at those locations, and how the work fits into research on public health and ecological restoration. About, FAQ, team, Talk, and collection sections give curious classifiers somewhere to go when a mystery silhouette deserves more than a quick click. Institutional reports from public-health, biodiversity, and park partners corroborate that this is part of active field research rather than a free-floating image game.

What you can do there

• Identify animal species in park-camera photographs
• Sort images for a biodiversity and tick-research dataset
• Discuss observations with the project community

Why we picked it

Camera traps are good at producing both useful evidence and photographs that seem designed to start arguments about ears and tails. This project gives those small identification decisions a clear destination: a Quebec research program studying biodiversity beside tick-sampling sites. The FAQ is unusually specific about how volunteer labels are meant to be used.

How to get the most from it

Read the short research and FAQ pages before classifying so you know why each species label matters. Begin with a few clear photographs, use the project discussion area when an image is ambiguous, and treat the task as careful sorting rather than a speed run. Open it directly; the site's frame policy prevents third-party embedding.

Good to know

The wider initiative describes six parks, one Zooniverse overview currently says five, and the FAQ says classification photos come from four, so those scopes should not be treated as one count. Live participation totals were inconsistent during review, and classification accuracy, privacy handling, account behavior, mobile use, audio, and accessibility were not independently tested. This is research participation, not tick-bite medical advice.

Who made it, and when?

PARCS en Santé research team is the credited creator or organization. The earliest supported launch date we found is July 14, 2026.