Today the California Academy of Sciences is launching their first iPhone app, the Golden Gate Park Field Guide:

The Golden Gate Park Field Guide is the go-to mobile guide for navigating San Francisco’s thousand-acre urban oasis. The app highlights the park’s common wildlife, popular attractions, and hidden gems. It also invites users to actively engage with the park and to record and share their experiences.

The app wasn’t available last night so I didn’t have a chance to try it out before writing this. But if it lives up to its description, it sounds like it will be a great accompaniment to a park visit.

The app includes four main areas:

• Field Guide: A dynamic guide highlighting more than 170 of the park’s animal and plant species, including a few surprises like wild coyotes and blackberry bushes.
• Park Map: An interactive map and live weather data offer valuable practical information, helping users plan ahead, locate off-the-beaten-path landmarks, and even find which of the park’s 60 attractions, 4 restaurants, or 15 public restrooms are closest to their location.
• Adventures: Tour routes provide ideas to enrich any visit, whether travelling by foot, bicycle or car. Scavenger hunts help users discover native species, examples of camouflage in action, and more.
• Sightings: “Citizen scientists” can add their own sightings and photos to the growing database, and help record the park’s biodiversity. Recent wildlife sightings are even reported in real-time via the app’s map feature.

Here’s hoping there are no more lost tourists (and locals) in the park now that this app is available. I’m sure the map is for real and all roads don’t lead back to the Academy… Or do they?

And for the record, running into homeless in the park should not be recorded in the app as “recent wildlife sightings”, ahem.

The app is normally $2.99 but the Academy’s press release promises that “early birds can download it free for a limited time.” So get to it and download the app today. Let us know what you think of it by leaving a comment.

Sarah B.