Welcome!
About Naturedigger
Learn, Participate, Conserve has been the foundation of Naturedigger since we started our journey over twelve years ago. Our mission has, and always will be, to educate the public about our natural world by offering free monarch education and support through our website. We offer information and opportunities to participate in community science (also called citizen science) data collection, because we know hands-on involvement leads to more engaged nature enthusiasts, and ultimately, conservationists.
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We hope our personal commitment to providing free, quality, nature education will create a new generation of enthusiastic naturalists and community scientists, who share one very important goal: to conserve our natural world and spread the word.
Founder
Naturedigger's founder, Tara Johnson, is a veteran environmental scientist, Certified California Naturalist and avid birder, who, throughout her 25-year career has been employed in both private and public sectors. She has worked with many threatened and endangered species, was directly involved with invasive species monitoring and education, as well as community science programs, outreach and nature education.
She not only promotes community science participation, but has been an active participant in numerous efforts herself, including developing and leading invasive weed monitoring programs and participating in dozens of organized bird counts over the past 20 years. In the summer of 2022, she became a volunteer at Pinnacles National Park tracking California condors using radio telemetry and educating park visitors about condors.
Since 2014, Tara's professional focus has been on monarch butterfly and milkweed education, conservation and community involvement. In addition to the Naturedigger website, Tara has been busy writing books for the past several years on monarch anatomy and life cycle stage identification and North American milkweed identification. These resources will be used by community scientists to submit more accurate data to monarch conservation organizations.
Tara received her degree in environmental science, and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts. Her career began in the early 90s in Melbourne, Florida where she worked with threatened species, including gopher tortoises and Florida scrub jays. Throughout her career, she has conducted wetland delineations, functions and values assessments, monitoring and replications, as well as endangered species surveys, relocations and permitting.​
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Naturedigger has been a partner of the Monarch Joint Venture since 2016.
