If you are building an app for real estate, city planning, or environmental compliance, you already know the headache of zoning laws and environmental checks.

One of the most tedious tasks is checking whether a specific plot of land or Zip Code is home to an endangered species. Usually, this involves hiring an environmental consultant or digging through clunky, decade-old government databases and complex GIS shapefiles.

But what if your app could just flag it automatically?

I recently built an API that solves this exact problem for developers. It’s called EcoRadius.

What it does

You pass the API a Zip Code (or exact coordinates) and a search radius. In less than a second, it geocodes the location, queries global biodiversity databases, and returns a clean JSON array of every Endangered and Critically Endangered species known to exist in that radius.

How to use it in Python

I hosted the API on RapidAPI so you don't have to worry about managing API keys yourself. You can try it out for free [here: https://rapidapi.com/magcargoj-5_idbKmEf/api/ecoradius-api/].

Here is how simple it is to use in Python. Let's check for endangered species in the Florida Everglades (Zip Code: 33034):

import requests

url = "https://ecoradius-api.p.rapidapi.com/api/v1/endangered/by-zip"

querystring = {"zipcode": "33034", "country": "US", "radius_km": "10"}

headers = {
    "x-rapidapi-key": "YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY",
    "x-rapidapi-host": "ecoradius-api.p.rapidapi.com"
}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, params=querystring)
data = response.json()

print(f"Found {data['total_unique_species']} endangered species!")

# Example output:
for species in data['species']:
    print(f"- {species['common_name']} ({species['scientific_name']})")

The Output

Instead of dealing with complex scientific taxonomy databases, you get a clean, developer-friendly response:

{
  "query_location": {
    "lat": 25.4052,
    "lng": -80.6833,
    "zipcode": "33034",
    "country": "US",
    "radius_km": 10
  },
  "total_unique_species": 5,
  "species": [
    {
      "scientific_name": "Terminalia buceras",
      "common_name": "Black Olive Tree",
      "kingdom": "Plantae",
      "status": "EN",
      "occurrences_found": 14
    },
    {
      "scientific_name": "Puma concolor coryi",
      "common_name": "Florida Panther",
      "kingdom": "Animalia",
      "status": "CR",
      "occurrences_found": 3
    }
  ]
}

Why I built this

I care a lot about environmental conservation. Making biodiversity data accessible to developers means fewer accidental habitat destructions and more awareness built directly into the apps we use every day.

If you are building PropTech, construction software, or just a cool nature app, feel free to give it a spin on RapidAPI!

👉 Try EcoRadius API here (100 free requests/month)

Let me know what you build with it!