Nature and birding support with reliable source prioritization
OpenAI Developer Community
May 18, 2026
Problem:
Birders and nature enthusiasts often use ChatGPT to identify species, organize sightings, plan outings, and understand wildlife, plants, habitats, weather, and field guides. However, nature identification and local wildlife information can be inaccurate if answers rely too heavily on general web results, blogs, or casual community posts.
Suggested feature:
Create a nature-focused mode that supports photo or description-based ID, confidence levels, lookalikes, habitat and range checks, structured field notes, and export-ready observation logs.
Please also prioritize official and expert reference sources when answering nature questions, such as state Departments of Wildlife, Departments of Natural Resources, state extension offices, National Park Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Cornell Lab of Ornithology/eBird/All About Birds, Audubon, universities, museums, herbaria, and natural history organizations. Community sources like iNaturalist, Reddit, blogs, and forums could still be useful as supporting context, but should not be treated as the final authority unless the user asks for community observations.
Why it matters:
This would make ChatGPT safer and more useful for birders, hikers, gardeners, naturalists, field-guide users, and citizen science participants. It would help users learn better observation habits, avoid overconfident IDs, and keep more reliable nature records.
Thanks.
Discussion in the ATmosphere