Grantham Journal uses Google Maps to track rogue heron
Posted by
Dave Lee
on 29 August 2007 at 16:02
Tags: Google Maps, Johnston Press, Journalism
Johnston Press’s Lincolnshire weekly the Grantham Journal is the latest newspaper to use Google Maps to tell a story online. But rather than tracking floods or criminals, this time it’s a quirky local story.
The ‘garden gobbler’ - a wild heron - is terrorising the people of Grantham as it works its way around the area, dining on the pond life in Grantham residents’ back gardens.
The Journal has called upon its readers to track the progress of the gobbler’s “deadly rampage” around the area, and is plotting the results on its Google Maps mashup. So far, 11 sightings have been logged.
Each sighting on the map is comes complete with a comment sent in by a reader. “Three times we’ve seen the heron wading around in the water and feeding on something - probably worms,” says one.
The Journal’s local mapping idea follows suit from other mapping projects. Earlier this month, the Telegraph.co.uk used Google Maps to chart A-Level results as they came in. As part of its flood coverage, BBC Berkshire used the free mapping tool to great effect to collate and display images of the floods sent in by readers and viewers. It was, said the readers, a resounding success. Sky News has also been using Google Maps mashups.
At the time of writing, the garden gobbler remains very much at large.
Guest blogger Dave Lee is a journalism student at the University of Lincoln. He usually blogs at dave-lee.org.
