Mark your calendars! City Nature Challenge 2018
City Nature Challenge 2018 is just around the corner and we know you'll want to help Los Angeles take the lead! Your past involvement in this project was critical to our win for total number of observations in 2016 and for total number of observers in 2017. This year, the project is going global with over 65 cities on 5 different continents. Competition will be at its fiercest and we need your help!
What else is different this year? Observation and identification will be split into two parts. We need your help during BOTH phases of the contest.
April 27-30 Observation Phase: Get out there and record AS MANY observations of wild plants and animals as you can! With your help, we can beat last year's number of 18,451 observations and even surpass Dallas/Fort Worth's number of 24,085.
May 1-3 Identification Phase: Make sure you check back in during these dates help to identify observations. There are always more people submitting observations than identifying them and good identification is critical to raising the number of recorded species.
What you can do to help right now.
• Join the City Nature Challenge 2018: Los Angeles project on iNaturalist. That way you’ll stay in the loop and receive all the latest developments.
• Follow us on Twitter @citnatchallenge.
• Use the hashtag #citynaturechallenge on Instagram and Twitter.
• Repost our content. Tag us and credit us in the comments @citnatchallenge.
Would you like to meet us in person? Attend one of our upcoming NHMLA City Nature Challenge events. There is no charge to attend, but RSVP is required. Click on the links below for more information and to RSVP. https://nhm.org/nature/visit/events
We’ll be sending out regular updates via journal posts. Stay tuned for more information!
Sincerely,
Lila Higgins
Senior Manager, Community Science, NHMLA
@lhiggins
Amy Jaecker-Jones
Community Science Coordinator – City Nature Challenge, NHMLA
@AmyJaeckerJones
Super-awesome City Nature Challenge Contributors from 2016-17!
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Comments
i won't be in LA this time but will help with plant ID! Are we supposed to hold off on IDs until that next weekend or do we start doing them right away?
The events are truly worthwhile, I will attempt to be present at most of the dates if I can!
@charlie Thanks! We'd love your expertise with plant IDs. There is no need to wait until the identification phase. We've broken it up to provide more time for IDs than in the past, but if you want to get started right away, feel free.
@diego4nature That's great! We look forward to seeing you.
well, my time is limited each day and i won't be in the area, so if i have time i will do some IDs starting with that weekend. I will get outside if I can of coures, but Vermont isn't in the city nature challenge and anyhow it's way too early in the year to get a good representation of biodiversity here.
@charlie Of course! Only do what you can. Any help is appreciated. Please let us know if any cities from Vermont would like to participate next year. We would welcome them gladly!
I thought about trying to bring Vermont in as a 'Rural Nature Challenge'. Our largest city (Burlington) is under 45,000 people with only 3 cities over 10K (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Vermont) so it would only make sense to do as all of Vermont or as Chittenden County (our biggest county, still maybe 1% of the population of the LA CNC area). But the biggest thing is our trees aren't even leafed out yet in late April, thus very few insects as well, I don't think all the birds are calling yet, etc etc... and it gets so muddy that most of our best trails are impassable or closed, so it doesn't make sense to do a big push for observations at that time. Montpelier is doing a big bioblitz in July so that will have to do.
Also the last few years it lined up with school break thus me being in LA as I sometimes travel to LA or other cities at that time... Not this year. If it weren't right after our school break I'd consider going to Boston, maybe.
I moved to SF recently and so... I'll contribute from here (and beat LA!). Thanks for doing the outreach and looking forward to seeing how many species are recorded this year!
@lilian2 Well, since I also work for the global challenge, any participation is good participation, and I'm glad you'll be a part of it. But I am hoping for an L.A. win.!
@charlie Makes sense.
Santa Catalina Island represent! I will try to post the most unusual and interesting species that I can find here and I'll try my best to set aside time to ID stuff from around the area. GO LA!!!
LA better win this year, you're right! And those islands have very unique fauna and flora, I'm sure you can find the unusual species in great abundance @bjdion!
yeah get the islands, get LA more points to beat SF and their oversized polygon :)
@bjdion That's great! And please, spread the word to others on the island. If you need any resources from me to help you do that, just let me know.
Another thing: you should send an expedition (with high clearance) up to the Liebre Mountain area. Tons of stuff up there that isn't elsewhere in the county and not a lot of iNat up there in general. I'd totally go if I were in LA. Other than that the high San Gabriels on the E county edge and saddleback butte or something. And the santa monicas but that goes without saying :)
Wouldn't Mt. Frazier, Mt. Pinos, and Tejon Ranch have similar flora? Or is Liebre Mountain truly unique, with the desert, sagebrush, pine/oak ecosystems?
well those other two aren't in LA county, right? so they don't count for the City Nature Challenge. But... the special thing about Liebre Mountain is its north side has a bunch of weird Sierra Foothill stuff like blue oak and grey pine and presumably a bunch of other associated speices. There's some weird oregon oak in an outlying population on Liebre. Etc. And then there is this amazing black oak forest on the crest of Liebre that isn't like anywhere else I have seen, no conifers to speak of, just black oak. And the spring wildflowers are great though may be done by now.
Pretty special place, that sounds neat!
it really is!
@charlie Thanks for the suggestion. I wasn't aware of that area.
Will you have a table at the "March/Rally for Science Los Angeles" on April 14?
@crayonsss We will not be having a table at the March, but Lila will be speaking and she will have postcards for the City Nature Challenge.
I want to let everyone know that we need at least a few people to step foot and document the flora and fauna of the San Gabriels. This region has many tree species that aren't found anywhere else and if we want to win something, our species count can be greatly improved if we do documentation up in those mountains. As of now, not a single observation has been made in the wild heart of the San Gabriels, and we are LA. We have amazing biodiversity and we're letting a lot of species slide off the map right now, let's make a change and further improve our great progress! :)
yeah LA is dragging. Wish i were there to get out to the san gabriels, dont forget the Liebre mountains either, there is a bunch of stuff in the way northwestern part of the county that is more characteristic of nor cal
Well, I'm taking initiative. I'm taking a morning trip to Mt. San Antonio Canyon to find those much needed species. I hope LA recovers soon.
haha it sounds like LA is sick. well maybe it is but not for this reason. Still two more days to go.
@diego4nature, thanks for taking initiative on this! I'm heading into the foothills this morning. Until now, I've been working museum events in Griffith Park and the South Bay. I probably won't go much beyond the canyons today, but @lhiggins hiked up to Henniger Flats last night so we're slowly starting to creep up there.
@charlie, I wish I could get out to Liebre. I took note of your suggestion earlier. Maybe someone will see this and do it!
Also, we haven't had time to upload observations from social media, text, or email yet. That will help our numbers. But yes, L.A. is dragging. We need to spread the word!
Thank you, I had a very great species turnout today. Based on the numbers, I think I can get 40 new species in the count, so that's good! And I wish you good luck @amyjaeckerjones
@diego4nature that's great!
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