iNaturalist Presents City Nature Challenge 2025 – Citizen Science Opportunity

The City Nature Challenge (CNC) is a four-day bioblitz held every April. Cities around the world compete and collaborate to find species, make observations, and connect people with nature in urban areas.

How can I participate in the City Nature Challenge?

Mark your calendar for CNC 2025! Here are the key dates:

• April 25-28: Make observations and upload them
• April 29-May 4: Continue to upload observations and help with identifications
• May 5: Results announced

Learn all the details here:

https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/wildlife_diversity/texas_nature_trackers/naturechallenge/

I hope many of you are excited about this year’s iNaturalist bioblitz. Here is a step by step guide:

1. Login to your iNaturalist account (best done on your computer for these first few steps). If you don’t have an account, sign up for one now.
2. On another browser tab, click on that link above.
3. Scroll down to the list of Participating Cities and click on Houston/Galveston. That will take you to your iNaturalist dashboard and you can click JOIN this project. Scroll down to see the map (much of our chapter territory is included) and to confirm you want to join this project.
4. Go back to the link shown. Scroll down to where it says Visit CityNatureChallenge Global Project 2025 and click on that. That will take you to your iNaturalist dashboard and you can click JOIN this project. Scroll down to confirm you want to join the Global project.
5. That’s it! Now your observations made in iNaturalist anytime during those 4 days will be “counted” as part of the challenge. If you are in the area covered by the Houston project, you will help that “city” get some bragging rights. If you are outside that area, your observations are credited to the Global project and can still be logged as citizen science.

Tune up your iNaturalist app, charge your smartphone and set aside some times during those 4 days to “observe” what’s around you.

Now, here are some TIPS FOR RECORDING YOUR HOURS IN VMS:

* Every time you observe and submit your nature observations, make a note of your time (remember 15 minute minimum for each observation period).
*That means if you observed for 15 minutes then took another 5 minutes to share your observations, that’s 20 minutes to make a note of.
* If you go to a particular location specifically to do your observations, for example, going to a local park, you may also add in reasonable travel time.
* At the end of the 4 days (midnight on Monday), or whenever you know you won’t be making any more observations, add up your times.
* On Tuesday, log into VMS and choose Citizen Science – other.
* Since this is one of the “field research” opportunities, you can put in begin and end dates so enter April 25 and April 28.
* Enter the TOTAL number of hours (to the nearest quarter hour) you spent over the 4 days.
list* In Description, make sure you put Texas Trackers City Nature Challenge 2025 with iNaturalist.

That’s it!

Tune up your iNaturalist app, charge your smartphone and set aside some times during those 4 days to “observe” what’s around you.

Helping with identifications is also a great way to contribute! While observers must make observations in participating cities or join the Global Project, anyone can help identify species worldwide. Taxon experts and dedicated iNaturalist users play a huge role in refining observations and guiding new participants. Every identification helps move observations closer to research-grade status and lets new users know their contributions matter.