Living out here, you get used to sharing the place with wildlife. A wading bird in the yard. A gator in the canal. Paw prints on a back road before you’ve had your coffee. It’s just part of life at the edge of the Glades.

Now there’s a new way to spend time with that wildlife, and the best part is you can do it from your own couch.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) just launched a project called Florida Wildlife Watch. It’s free, it runs entirely online, and it lets regular folks like us pitch in on real wildlife research a few minutes at a time.

How It Works

Here’s the idea. The FWC has trail cameras set up across its Wildlife Management Areas, which cover more than six million acres of public land around the state. Those cameras snap thousands upon thousands of photos of whatever wanders by. Somebody has to look at all of them and say what’s in the picture, and that somebody can be you.

So you log on, a photo pops up, and you tell them what you see. A deer. A turkey. Sometimes just an empty patch of palmetto. Then the next photo loads, and you do it again. Each little answer helps biologists keep track of which animals are out there and how the land is holding up.

“Florida Wildlife Watch connects people at home to nature while having a real impact on conservation,” said Graysen Boehning, the FWC’s statewide participatory science coordinator. He says even a few clicks matter, and people have clearly taken him up on it. In its first days alone, the project logged more than 200,000 photo classifications!

Closer to Home Than You Think

And here’s the part that hits close to home. This project grew out of an earlier one called Everglades Wildlife Watch, which has been running cameras right here in South Florida since 2024. Some of that work included white-tailed deer studies over in Big Cypress. So when you sit down to sort photos, there’s a real chance you’re looking at our own backyard.

Keep clicking and you might meet some familiar neighbors. Bobcats, black bears, wild turkeys, and herons all turn up. Once in a while, a Florida panther even slips quietly past the lens. You never really know what the next photo holds.

Make a Trip of It

If all that screen time gives you the itch to see the real thing, then pair it with a trip. A slow drive through Big Cypress, windows down and eyes on the tree line, is still one of the best ways to spot wildlife in person. The FWC’s WMA Recreation Map can also help you plan an outing to public land near you. The cameras catch a lot, but nothing beats hearing the Glades wake up around you.

To jump in from home, visit Zooniverse.org/Projects/FWC/Florida-Wildlife-Watch and start clicking. No experience needed. Just a little curiosity and a few spare minutes.

Your watch starts now. We can’t wait to see what you find!

You may also be interested in Birding in Big Cypress or Drive Through a Swamp