Welcome to the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy's Scavenger Hunt!

Ever wondered about what plants or animals fill your yard? Populate your nearby favorite trail? Or what that vibrant mushroom you found is? Join SAHC’s ongoing scavenger hunt to learn about and discover with your friends, family, and your community all the wonderful creatures that inhabit our mountains. Interact with SAHC staff and other hunters to help identify plants and animals, learn new fun facts, and explore beautiful photos.

If you have never used iNaturalist before, iNaturalist is a great place to identify plants and animals with the help of the internet and the surrounding community. You can learn about what the names of plants and animals are in your area and much more!

Instructions:

Following the list below, explore the great outdoors and find plants, animals, fungi, insects, etc. and take pictures of them! Once you have your pictures, you can upload them to the mobile iNaturalist app, or from your computer on the iNaturalist website. Instructions on how to upload observations can be found here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/add-an-observation-nz

In order to add it to this scavenger hunt. You will need to have joined the project first. You can do this on the home page for this project. The button to join is located in the top right above the header image. Once you have joined, from your observation upload page, you can click on “add to projects” and select “SAHC iNaturalist Scavenger Hunt.”

Rules and other information:

This scavenger hunt has no ending date. This scavenger hunt will remain active for any users who would like to join at any point in time. However, new lists will be added for certain times of year and/or special events.

Please only use one observation for each item on the list. For example. If you find a spider, you may count it for something with more than two, four, or six legs, but only one of them. Get out there and explore all the nooks and crannies!

Do NOT post any observations that are located inside of private, protected land. As these observations can be visible on a map, this is to avoid trespassing.

All observations must be made by you! There is no fun in taking someone else's credit! Additionally, it’s against iNaturalist rules; you cannot upload other people’s media.

Please do not use prior observations to add to the hunt. Only use observations you make after you join the project!

Do not upload anything domesticated or cultivated (i.e. Your pet dog/cat, or a household plant).

Be respectful of wildlife and nature and leave things where you found them!

Have fun and stay safe while in the wilderness!

This entire list is honor based and there are no tangible prizes except for a whole lot of cool knowledge and facts and maybe some cool memories too from your scavenger hunt! There may be some future virtual badges or a physical patch in the future depending on how many people are interested!

If you have any further questions, you can contact the admin of this page “SAHCScav” Or, you can contact AmeriCorps member “Sarge” at sargent@appalachian.org. Good luck and happy hunting!