Young Conservationist Documents Wildlife
Luke Foster has spent the past several years documenting Bermuda’s wildlife through thousands of observations.
His interest in the island’s natural environment began at Warwick Academy, where he was a member of the school’s Natural History Club.
Rosalind Windgate, who ran the club, helped develop his interest in wildlife.
Mr Foster later met Dr Miguel Mejias through the club and began going birdwatching.
“I really got into it and bought a better camera and started looking for other things to find – insects, every single living organism,” Mr Foster told Bernews.
Mr Foster — who has earned a scholarship from the Bermuda Zoological Society — began photographing the species he encountered and uploading the images to iNaturalist, an online platform that allows wildlife observations to be shared with scientists and others interested in nature.
He has recorded more than 13,425 observations on iNaturalist, representing 5,293 species of birds, insects, fish and plants.
His photographs include several endemic Bermudian species.
They include the moth Eudarcia haliplancta, the pseudoscorpion Pachyolpium atlanticum, Rhagovelia plumbea, a species of water skater, and Ercolania selva, a species of sacoglossan sea slug, which he spotted crawling across a sunken leaf in Jew’s Bay, Southampton.
“iNaturalist is a science platform, like social media, you can upload images of any living creature you come across,” said Mr Foster, who mostly uses a Nikon D850 and Olympus TG 6 camera.
“It becomes part of this massive database that scientists across the world can access and use your data to help their research.
“I’ve got quite a few records of species in Bermuda that had never been seen on the island before.
“I try to get out as much as I can when I return to the island from university.”
Mr Foster is studying zoology at the University of Leeds and hopes to eventually apply what he has learned to conservation in Bermuda.
“I’d like to bring all that knowledge back to Bermuda one day and help with the conservation work,” he added.
A recent post in the Government’s Envirotalk newsletter read: “One Bermudian, 19-year-old Luke Foster, has recorded over 12,000 records on iNaturalist – the majority of which are from Bermuda. Only a couple of months ago Luke found a genus of fly at Spittal Pond that contains two endemic fly species, helping us to understand the current distribution of these endemics. He has also found new records of the tiny but beautiful sea snail Triphora turtlebayensis, an endemic pseudoscorpion Pachyolpium altlanticum.”
Some of Luke Foster’s impressive photography is below
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Category: All, Environment, News
