The Louisiana Master Naturalists of Greater Baton Rouge invite people to explore the outdoors April 28 to May 1 and to document the wildlife they find during the City Nature Challenge.
The Baton Rouge region includes Ascension, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, St. Helena, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Washington, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana parishes.
People of all ages in the region can participate by posting photos of organisms into the iNaturalist app or iNaturalist.org website.
INaturalist can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play store.
Smartphone technology gives scientists access to a volunteer pool to collect scientific data. Scientists can use the public’s photos for any number of studies, such as bloom times, flowers preferred by bees, presence of a disease, species surveys and track new invasive species.
The City Nature Challenge is an international competition.
To participate:
- Find wildlife or plant life anywhere outside. Wild ones only, no landscape plants or pets.
- Snap photos of what you find with your phone or camera.
- Share the observations in the iNaturalist.org website or on the iNaturalist mobile app.
The goal is to determine what city can observe the most wild organisms, document the most species and have the most participants. The collective scientific efforts from participants around the world will be tallied with results announced May 8.
Last year was the second year the region participated in the challenge, and over 15,100 observations were made. The region placed 27th in the world and 14th in the U.S. The overall winner in 2022 was La Paz, Bolivia.
Visit brnaturechallenge.org to see the list of local organizations participating and other information. For questions, people can also contact brnaturechallenge@gmail.com.
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