Results announced: May 9
How has the City Nature Challenge changed in light of Covid-19?
Covid-19 is now largely behind us. But there may be a wave 5 - we will update details for the City Nature Challenge 2022 as matters unfold. No matter what, be sure to follow all local guidelines about Covid-19 in your city. And please get your vaccinations, and booster shots.
And yes: Covid-19 is on iNaturalist, but has no observations yet: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=1081492
When can I start making observations that will count for the City Nature Challenge? When should I stop?
All observations made starting on April 29 at 12:00am YOUR LOCAL TIME and up until May 02 at 11:59pm YOUR LOCAL TIME will count for the City Nature Challenge.
Can I upload photos during the CNC that I took prior to the CNC?
No, only observations made during April 29 - May 02 will count for the City Nature Challenge.
I don’t belong to one of the fourteen southern African cities. Can I still contribute to the CNC?
Yes. Join this project https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022-global-project - any observations made during April 29 - May 02 will count for the City Nature Challenge, even though you are not in a city.
And you can also contribute by helping various cities with their identifications. For the week following the observation period we will need people to help identify the observations. So if you know your birds, or insects or plants or fungi, or are a specialist in some taxonomic group, your identifications will be invaluable. Follow the journals for the different cities to see what their urgent identification needs are.
Do I need to join the project and add my observations to it for them to be included?
No. All observations that are made within the boundary of the project between April 29 - May 02 will automatically get pulled into the project - YOU DO NOT NEED TO ADD YOUR OBSERVATIONS TO THE PROJECT. You’re welcome to join the project though - that way you’ll get notifications about News posts that are made, and the project will be displayed on your observations (and provide a quick link to anyone interested)
How can I make sure my observations are in my city's CNC project?
If your city is using iNaturalist, the easiest way is to go to your city’s project, click the “Observers” tab, and look for your name there! If you’ve joined your city’s project, you can also look at your individual observations and you’ll see your city’s project listed under the “Projects” sidebar.
What kinds of observations should I make during the CNC?
Any observations of WILD plants, animals, fungi, seaweed, bacteria, lichen, etc. you find in and around your city! Observations of living or dead organisms, or evidence of those organisms, like shells, tracks, scat, feathers, etc., are fine. Remember to make sure you’re taking good photos of the organisms!
What if I make an observation of something I know isn't wild? Will it still count for the CNC?
Yes, as long as you’re not making a lot of these observations, most cities will include observations of non-wild organisms during the CNC. However, it’s VERY IMPORTANT TO MARK THOSE OBSERVATIONS AS CAPTIVE/CULTIVATED. Please be a good community member and data steward by marking any observation that you know for sure is not wild as captive/cultivated - in iNaturalist, there’s a field for it in the app when you make an observation. This includes pets, animals in a zoo/aquarium, plants in your garden, potted plants, plants at a botanical garden, etc. If you are uncertain if a tree or plant was planted, then please leave it as wild.
Remember, we are particularly interested in plants and animals that have gone wild - observations of weeds, alien invasive and wild organisms are extremely useful.
What if I don't know what the organism is that I took a picture of? How do my observations get identified?
No problem! You don’t have to know what species it is you took a photo of - you just need to take a good enough photo (or photos) that it can be identified (see tips for taking good photos). There are a couple ways you can get your observations IDed:
iNaturalist has Computer Vision/Artificial Intelligence (AI) built into it, and when you make an observation with the app or upload an observation on the web, as long as you have connectivity iNaturalist will give you suggestions about what it thinks you just took a photo of, and you can choose one, especially if it says “Visually Similar” AND “Seen Nearby”. Because the Identifications are based on observations posted to iNaturalist, some places (like North America) will have mainly correct IDs, and in other places (like southern Africa) these suggestions are likely to be wrong - and of American species. If none of the AI suggestions seem correct, you can type in your own identification using the search bar, at any level of detail you know (e.g., “California poppy” or “Plants” are both fine to use as an ID!)
Once you upload an observation it can be seen by the entire iNaturalist community. Anyone in the community can agree with your ID, help refine your ID to get it to species level, or correct a mis-identification.
Remember though, you need to have taken a good enough photo (or set of photos) for other people to ID what you saw! Note that all identifications are made by other volunteers offering their time to identify observations: neither iNaturalist or SANBI or any other institutions pay staff members to add identifications.
Do I have to make observations using the app? What if I want to use a real camera?
For iNaturalist, it is most convenient to use the app to make observations. But it is fine if you want to use a real camera. You can upload your observations using the Upload tool on iNaturalist, and if your camera doesn’t have a GPS, you can drop a pin to indicate where you made each observation. If you’re planning on making most of your CNC observations using a camera, we recommend watching this short video on how to best use iNaturalist’s Photo Uploader so as to save you time on mapwork.
What about if I see something but didn't get a photo of it - can I still make an observation?
We get it - sometimes a cool bird or butterfly flies by without stopping and you just can’t get a picture. Yes, you can make observations in iNaturalist and most other platforms without a photo, and most cities will allow observations without photos for the CNC. However, please do this sparingly, and only if you know for sure what the species was, since no one can help ID or confirm an observation without a photo. We dont encourage this, but sometimes what else can you do. Note though that iNaturalist does do sounds, and recordings of birds, frogs, insects are most welcome.
Where can I see how my city is doing?
Potentially in two places, depending on what platform your city is using to gather observations. The City Nature Challenge website has a list with all the cities, but the numbers are not real-time for some cities. Cities using iNaturalist can see how they’re doing in real-time in the City Nature Challenge umbrella project - click here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022 Remember that for 2022 the results will be the collaborative effort of everyone around the world - the CNC is not a competition as some cities still have Covid-19 restrictions in place.
Someone added an ID to my observation - should I agree with it? What if I don't agree with it?
An identification confirms that you can confidently identify it yourself compared to any possible lookalikes. Please do not simply “Agree” with an ID that someone else has made without confirming that you understand how to identify that taxon. If you agree with the ID without actually knowing the taxon, it may reach Research Grade erroneously.
If you disagree with an identification, the best thing to do is to add an identification of your own. It's helpful to provide a reason for disagreement in a comment. If you think you had the correct identification before the other person added theirs, then it’s useful to write a friendly comment explaining why you think your ID is correct.
How do observations in iNaturalist become Research Grade? Do my observations have to get to Research Grade to count for the CNC?
To get an observation to “Research Grade” status: (1) it must have a photo, (2) it must have an accurate date and location, (3) it cannot be a captive or cultivated organism, and (4) over 2/3rds of the people adding IDs to it have to agree about what species it is. It’s key to check back on your observations after you make them to see if anyone has added an identification or left a comment, possibly asking you to provide a bit more information about what you saw.
All observations will count for the CNC, even those that are not Research Grade. One of the measures of success for a city is what proportion of observations are Research Grade.
I took so many photos during the CNC that there's no way I can get them all uploaded before the end of the day on May 2 - what should I do?
Relax! Luckily we have a week - up until May 09 at 9am YOUR LOCAL TIME , where you can work on uploading all the observations you made during April 29 - May 02. They’ll still get added to your city’s CNC project, as long as they were made in the April 29 - May 02 window and are correctly mapped within the city.
Can I help identify what people found during the CNC? What if I'm not an expert in anything?
Yes! In the same way that anyone can be an observer, anyone can help identify observations. In iNaturalist, go to your city’s project, click “Observations” and you’ll see an “Identify” button pop up just below it. Clicking this will take you to the iNaturalist Identify page and show you all of your city’s observations that still need to be identified. From this page, you can restrict what it shows you by taxon, which helps if you know how to ID certain groups, such as birds, or beetles, or Proteas. If you’re not an expert in any group, you can still help by identifying the “unknowns” - the observations with no IDs at all! Click the “Filters” button and then select the dashed-line leaf with a question mark in it: This will show you all the observations that are currently listed as “unknown.” It’s really helpful to go through these and add high-level IDs like or “insects” or “birds” or “fungi” but for plants, please try and get to family or leave them - whatever you know about the organism - so people who do know how to ID these groups down to species can find them!
Here’s a short video about using the Identify page. https://vimeo.com/246153496
No matter what, please only add an ID of which you can be reasonably sure - it’s fine if you don’t know what something is, and it’s fine to only add a genus or family or even kingdom level ID.
If you want to help identify observations from any city - great and thank you!
On iNaturalist, why is the species number different in my city's project vs. in the umbrella project? Which one will count for the results?
We use the numbers in each city’s project, so you can think of it as branch tips (or “leaves”) - if there are observations identified to a genus but nothing in that genus is IDed to species, then the genus itself will count as a “species.” If there are observations identified to a family but no observations IDed to a genus or species in that family, then the family counts as a “species.” This is how “species” are counted in collection projects.
If you look at the umbrella project for the CNC, the species count for each city is lower, because the umbrella project is only counting actual species.
But for the CNC itself, we will use the “species” number from each city’s project as we compile results from each city. For the overall collaborative results, we will use the number in the umbrella project.
When are the results announced?
The results for YOUR CITY will be whatever the numbers are in your project on Monday, May 09 at 9am YOUR LOCAL TIME. It takes almost 24 hours to get the numbers from all the cities, since our cities in New Zealand and our cities in Hawaii are 23 hours apart by time zone. So the very last cities to hit 9am on Monday May 09 are in Hawaii. Results will be announced within 2-3 hours of that time, around 2pm Pacific time.
What are the data used for?
On iNaturalist, all the data are freely available to anyone interested in downloading them. iNaturalist observations are used in hundreds of scientific publications. Many of them are using data that is shared with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility as part of the iNaturalist Research-Grade Observations dataset. You can browse the ongoing list of the publications that have cited a GBIF dataset containing at least one record from iNaturalist.
However, we usually find the most immediate use of CNC data happens at a local level: a discovery of a new-to-that-place species, someone documenting a population of a rare or invasive species that wasn't previously known, better understanding of where particular species are in that area, etc. So any local governments, parks departments, or other organizations who track biodiversity/invasive species/rare species in the area that are involved in the City Nature Challenge will likely use the data produced to make more-informed management decisions.
How can I share about the City Nature Challenge on social media?
Tag any post with #CityNatureChallenge! You can also tweet at us: @citnatchallenge.
Tips for Taking Photos During the City Nature Challenge
The photos you take during the City Nature Challenge are there to provide evidence of the organism you saw, and to help confirm its identification. Therefore, taking good photos is key to participating in the CNC! Here are some tips to taking photos:
