What better way to help create a baseline of Bay Area biodiversity than to engage in a biodiversity competition? Started in 2016 for the first ever National Citizen Science Day, the City Nature Challenge was a bioblitz-style competition between Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area, engaging residents and visitors in documenting nature to better understand our urban biodiversity. Over 20,000 observations were made by more than 1000 people in a one-week period, documenting approximately 1600 species in each location, including new records. In April 2017, the City Nature Challenge is going national, with cities around the country joining in the competition! Anyone can take part in the City Nature Challenge and help the Bay Area win - by exploring nature all around you and documenting the species you find using iNaturalist. We’ll compare stats like total number of species found, total number of observations, and total number of observers to find out who comes out on top!
