Why nature lovers are bioblitzing across D-FW this weekend
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Grab your phone and sunscreen — nature is calling.
Why it matters: Hundreds of North Texans are participating in the City Nature Challenge, which calls itself the largest community science biodiversity census in the world.
The big picture: The four-day challenge, which ends Monday, is a wide-ranging group project on biodiversity, noting species in urban areas and documenting how they are responding to climate change and urban sprawl.
- In many instances, a single photo has helped scientists learn about a new or lesser-known species.
Flashback: The challenge started in 2016 as a competition between Los Angeles and San Francisco and now spans over 700 cities around the world.
- The Dallas-Fort Worth metro placed fifth last year in the number of documented observations. San Antonio came in second.
State of play: This year's challenge includes events from Frisco to Fort Worth to Midlothian, where nature lovers can participate in a bioblitz together.
- The Trinity River Audubon Center and other nature-oriented organizations will analyze the photos to better understand plant and animal behavior and track any changes from year to year.
Case in point: North Texans documented over 4,300 species last year, including this photo of a Texas Micropirate in Arlington that could be the first known photograph of the species alive.
- "A lot of times, people think of nature as something you go away to get to. We go to these fantastic national parks, and those places are great, but there's also nature all around us," Nathan May, an educator at the Audubon center, tells Axios.
How it works: Download the iNaturalist app on your phone or go to this website to upload photos of wild organisms around you. "Wild means that it wasn't put there, and is not being taken care of by people," per the challenge's website.
- Take your photos by Monday and upload them by May 10. They will automatically be entered into the City Nature Challenge.
Pro tip: Make sure the subject can be clearly seen in the photo and isn't blurry. You can also upload multiple photos of the same subject, showing attributes like leaves, flowers, nuts and bark.
- For animals in the wild, stay a safe distance away and consider using your phone's zoom feature.
The bottom line: "All of this stuff is worth appreciating and worth protecting so that we can sustain the systems of life that sustain us," May says.