Urban Wild Watch

What to know before you start

Urban Wild Watch is a community wildlife reporting app for cities and suburbs where people and wildlife share the same space. The premise is simple: residents already see the animals, and what they lack is a shared place to record it. The app gives them a map, a short reporting form, and a set of ground rules about what not to do with the information.

The reporting flow is deliberately narrow. You tap the map to mark where you saw an animal, pick a sighting type (wildlife sighting, injured, or dead), choose the species, and describe what the animal did. The species list covers the animals people actually run into in North American cities and suburbs: coyote, fox, bear, raccoon, skunk, deer, cougar, beaver, moose, bison, and wolf, plus an "other wildlife" option. Behaviour is recorded in three plain categories rather than a free-text guess: "passed by" for an animal that moved through without stopping, "watched us" for one that stopped to observe, and "made contact" for one that approached, followed, or engaged. Reports can include an optional description, a nearby landmark, your name, and the date witnessed, which can be backdated up to a month. Injured and dead animal reports use the same map but a different sighting type.

The map itself has a mode switch for activity zones, which shows the general area where animals have been reported rather than pushing every sighting as a precise pin. The app also warns reporters not to put their home address or a landmark that identifies their house into the description. This is the part of the product that matters most for anyone evaluating it: the design intent is awareness, not a tool for finding animals.

The reporting guidelines are stated on the report form itself. Submit accurate information, no false reports, this is for community safety. Do not approach or feed wildlife, give wildlife its space. If an animal seems aggressive or injured, call local animal control rather than the app. The site is installable to a phone home screen, and the interface is built around a mobile map with a report button and a locate-me control.

The project is a small civic tool rather than a company with a public roadmap. It was covered in launch coverage by the @mystartuptvin news account, which reported that it was created by Viyoohan Sayooran, a Grade 3 student in Markham, Ontario, and that it was built with AI tools including Claude and Lovable. That coverage is the source for the build-tool attribution on this listing; the app itself does not publish a stack. No pricing page, subscription, or account requirement is visible on the site, and no user numbers, funding, or company details are published. Treat the coverage claim about the creator as reported, not confirmed by the product.

What is verifiable from the product today: the species and behaviour taxonomy, the injured/dead reporting paths, the activity-zone map mode, the anti-approach guidelines, and the installable mobile web app. What is not verifiable: adoption, moderation practices, how reports are reviewed, whether data is shared with municipalities or animal control, and how long reports persist. Anyone listing or recommending it should describe it as a lightweight community reporting map, not as a wildlife management or safety system.