Citizen science count

The City of Olney has counted its white squirrels every October since 1977. In September 2026 it replaced the volunteers’ paper maps with a map survey that also takes sightings from anyone, any day. Full story with pictures: Olney white squirrel count on mapsurvey.org.

The question

Olney, a town of about 9,600, calls itself the home of the white squirrels and tracks the ratio of grey to white squirrels as a conservation measure. Each October, about a hundred volunteers walk 35 assigned routes, labelled A1 to H32 and covering the old town, residential streets, the lake shores, the parks and the college campus, on three Saturday mornings. Each volunteer got a paper map of their route, recorded white, grey and fox squirrels, cats (as predators) and feeding sites, and handed the map in. The City Clerk’s office transcribed the maps by hand and published an annual report. Observations outside October went unrecorded.

How the survey was built

The survey opens with a short introduction and the city’s instructions, then a map page. A set of buttons stands for what was seen: white squirrel, grey squirrel, fox squirrel, cat, feeding site, and anything else. A volunteer taps the button, places a pin at the exact spot, and fills in the sub-questions: how many, an optional photo, an optional note. Respondents say whether they are walking an assigned October route or reporting freely; route walkers can add a note on route conditions at the end.

The same survey serves two audiences. On count Saturdays it is the volunteers’ recording sheet. The rest of the year, a poster campaign (“See a squirrel? Let us know!”) invites residents and visitors to report what they see on the same map.

What came back

In the first week of open reporting, 22 to 27 September 2026, before the first mobile count on 3 October, residents reported white squirrels concentrated around the city park and the old town, with more sightings on the lake’s north shore; grey and fox squirrels clustered near downtown. Sightings appear on a map and a heat map as they come in, with no transcription step, and the annual grey-to-white ratio report can be built from the export.

What it teaches

• Match the geometry to the intent. A sighting is a point, so the task is a pin, the simplest thing a respondent can do on a map (Designing a map survey, rule 1).
• Sub-questions are the data model. Species, count, photo, note: each is a sub-question on the pin and a column in the export, which is what the clerk’s office tabulates (Add sub-questions).
• Observation, not self-registration. Respondents report the world around them; the survey is written as “what did you see”, and one respondent can add as many pins as they have sightings (What participatory mapping is).
• One survey, two framings, one attribute to tell them apart. “Assigned route or free report?” is a plain question that lets the analysis separate the structured count from the year-round stream without two surveys.
• The phone replaces the paper, not the volunteers. Citizen science still needs the hundred people on Saturday morning; what the map changes is what happens to their marks after they are made (Export responses).