INDIANAPOLIS — During the months of June and July, you can help the Indiana DNR collect data about wildlife along waterways.

The Paddlecraft Wildlife Index started in 2020. This project utilizes volunteers who are already out paddleboarding, canoeing or kayaking. After paddling, volunteers fill out a short survey via postcard about the number and type of animals spotted.

One volunteer in the Paddlecraft Wildlife Index project is Erica Weddle. She operates Simply Fitness in Brown County. You can often find her leading group paddleboard trips on Yellowwood Lake.

“This time of year, probably three or four times a week,” Weddle explained about how frequently she is on the water.

Weddle says when she paddleboards, she encourages lake visitors to use all of their senses to really plug into their surroundings.

“Whether they’re feeling something, seeing something, hearing something, maybe it’s just something new and different for them,” she started. “Encouraging people to stop and think about all that and pause.”

She uses this mindset herself when paddleboarding. She says she loves animal watching, and seeing beavers is her favorite.

Attentiveness like this is useful when monitoring for animals to report back to the DNR.

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“Indiana DNR has a history of working with the public on data collection,” explained Andy Byers.

Byers is the Furbearer and Turkey Research Biologist for the Division of Fish and Wildlife and Nature Preserves. He explained how the program got started.

“There was this group of people that’s really passionate about the outdoors and were using Indiana’s waterways to get out and look for wildlife. We wanted to use that to our advantage,” Byers recalled.

Volunteers have been reporting their findings to the DNR with this project since 2020. Last year, paddlers put in more than 2,000 hours of volunteer work.

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“If I was going to go out and do that by myself, I would have to work 40 hours a week all year, just to collect that much data,” Byers said. “That’s a huge amount of work!”

Volunteers who are already out on the water are acting as the eyes and ears of the DNR to help keep an eye on animal populations.

With this survey, the DNR is specifically interested in 12 animals. They are watching for four mammals: beaver, river otter, muskrat, and mink. There are five birds: bald eagle, great blue heron, osprey, great egret, and kingfisher. There are also three types of turtle: painted turtle, red-eared slider, and Blanding’s turtle.

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Weddle took WRTV out onto the lake. Along the way, she was quick to point out the birds flying above, the locations where she typically sees beavers, and all the other animals she spotted.

“Today we saw some blue herons and a couple of turtles,” Weddle explained. “Getting people out on the water and in nature is key to my mission, but also to the DNR.”

The data on the postcard (the time spent on the water, the type of animals, and the number of animals) is used by many different departments in the DNR, not just for Byers and his team.

“We want to share this data with the other biologists that work for DNR who can use that for management decisions,” Byers explained. “We’re also sharing that data with property managers around the state so they can kind of see what’s going on with the land they manage.”

Byers shared that there are over 2,700 volunteers with the program all across the state. He said there are hotspots of volunteers in places like Brown, Steuben, and LaGrange Counties.

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You can participate in this program by sending a postcard from a single trip, or send multiple postcards if you’ll be out paddling multiple times throughout June and July.

You can find a link to volunteer in the Paddlecraft Wildlife Index here.

Once you sign up, the DNR will send you materials to get started, including the postcards that you’ll complete and send back to Byers after your paddle.

Byers is constantly combing through the data provided by volunteers. He hopes that now, in the program’s sixth year, he will be able to start seeing some trends developing.

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“The goal of this survey is to establish kind of a long-term data set that we can use to look at trends of these species,” Byers explained. “It gives us a really good idea of where in the state people are seeing these different wildlife species.”

Byers is thankful for volunteers like Weddle, and is hopeful that others who love the water will sign up.

“The more people that we have participating, the more data we get, and the more people get to get out and enjoy Indiana’s waterways,” Byers concluded.