By Veronica Groves, a PhD candidate at McGill University

Thanks to support from the Québec Center for Biodiversity Studies, we participated in the “Blitz the Gap” initiative to document biodiversity using iNaturalist in Québec. Blitz the Gap is a Canada-wide citizen science initiative aimed at documenting biodiversity that has been historically underrepresented on iNaturalist. This includes species that are hard to access (for example in the Canadian North), or hard to identify (like with minnows and aquatic invertebrates).  From June 13^th-15^th 2025, we – four graduate students in biology at McGill University – canoed and camped at a remote campsite on Lac Sans Bout in the Réserve faunique Mastigouche approximately 3 hours north of McGill University. We sought to document species which had previously not been listed on iNaturalist in the area with a focus on small underappreciated species such as minnows as we all have extensive experience with identification of Canadian freshwater species.

Our first challenge arose while trying to catch minnows. At our campsite, we could see many small fishes along the lakeshore. However, you are not permitted to set minnow traps in Québec provincial parks or wildlife reserves, which is typically how I catch minnows for research. This meant returning to a more childlike method of fish capture – hand fishing and chasing fish with a hand net. While these methods are lots of fun, we had very little success capturing minnows this way here. We were able to catch northern red-bellied dace using this method, however, and this fish had not been previously logged on iNaturalist for this lake. We had more success with fish capture using traditional angling under our recreational fishing permits that we purchased for the park. This way we were able to catch larger fish: two creek chubs and several brook trout. These were not the minnows we sought to document but again these fish were not logged on iNaturalist for this lake. This was surprising given that brook trout are a popular angling target and fishers often document their catches on iNaturalist.

Our second challenge came from viewing interesting species, but being unable to capture photographs before the animals disappeared. Specifically, we saw a newt swimming around the shore several times, but could not capture a photo. We also saw a porcupine who ran into the forest as we approached. 

However, despite the above challenges, we were able to log 73 new observations for the lake and 52 new species including the carnivorous round-leafed sundew, the chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly and the mud Amnicola snail. In addition to the aforementioned rare species, we also logged several common species that had not been documented on iNaturalist for the lake like the eastern white pine, red maple, and paper birch. 

We appreciated the opportunity that the QCBS champions grant provided for us to take a break from our research and go into the woods to document biodiversity. This is the way that many of us first fell in love with nature and biology, and so to return to these roots was reinvigorating.