City Nature Challenge

April 26 - 29, 2024

What is the City Nature Challenge?

First and foremost, the City Nature Challenge is a nature-based activity in which you and anyone you know can easily participate every year! Tracking biodiversity around the world is the core activity of the CITY NATURE CHALLENGE (CNC), a friendly, international competition that encourages people to find and document all the plants and wildlife they can find in their city. Using the iNaturalist platform, participants in CNC host cities compete against each other to see which city can make the most observations of nature, find the most species, and engage the most people in this bio-blitz style event. Knowing what species are found in each city helps conservationists study and protect them, and the CNC is a way for scientists, land managers and the community to come together for the common good of documenting nature in the area. Developed by staff at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and California Academy of Sciences, City Nature Challenge has continued to attract greater participation every year.

Lead by the Canadian Wildlife Federation, CITY NATURE CHALLENGE CANADA includes a coalition of organizing partners in cities across the country who are inspiring Canadians to get involved in the CNC each year. Through use of the Canadian platform found at iNaturalist.ca, CNC Canada encourages cities across Canada to compete against each other individually, but also to combine together as Canada competes against the world! Our collective totals across the country reflect Canada’s complete total of CNC observations.

See Participating Canadian Cities

How Did Canada Do in the City Nature Challenge 2024?

How did Canada do with 667 cities around the world all jockeying for top spot in this friendly, yet collaborative, competition to build a living record of biodiversity? Considering that snow finally melted in most parts of Canada just weeks ago, six cities impressively made it in the top 100, competing with places like La Paz, Bolivia, Monterrey, Mexico, and San Antonio, United States.

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Download Participation Certificate

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Get Involved in the City Nature Challenge Canada 2025!

Become a city organizer for next year’s spring event! You don’t need to be a municipal employee to sign up. That’s right, any member of the public can register and take the lead for their city.

Here's how:

Contact the Canadian Wildlife Federation to get support: [email protected].
Attend monthly meetings which began in September 2024.

The Canadian Wildlife Federation supports CNC city organizers by promoting the event on a national level, designing bilingual communications materials for cities to use (including social media posts) and scheduling meetings with all Canadian organizers. CWF will also create the national iNaturalist project and get the word out to the iNaturalist Canada community. See last year’s project.

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How to Get Your City Involved

The CNC is an annual event that welcomes the participation of new cities each year. Organizers of events can range from keen iNaturalist users with some sway in your community, organizations looking for exciting ways to help people connect with nature, and municipalities looking to engage their community, to school teachers looking for new opportunities to inspire a love of nature in their students.

Registration for the annual spring event begins each fall. At the heart of CNC events is a spirit of friendly competition amongst participating cities around the globe. No matter if your event is big or small, you can still compete against cities in your own country while contributing to your national totals as a country. Here are some details on what you’ll be required to do as an organizer:

Making monthly online meetings with the global CNC organizers
Participating in planning discussions with the CNC Canada groups
Collaborating with the Canadian Wildlife Federation
Creating and maintaining your city’s CNC project on iNaturalist.ca
Promoting the CNC in your area including how to best participate and communicate the results of the CNC
Completing a few milestones along the way, set by the global CNC organizers

COVID-19 Update

Right now, international organizers of the 2020 City Nature Challenge are moving ahead with events.

However, they do suggest individual event organizers follow all regulations suggested by local government in light of concerns surrounding COVID-19. Check to see if the event closest to you is still running.

Also, to embrace the collaborative aspect of the City Nature Challenge and to reflect the healing power of nature, this year’s event is no longer a competition. Instead, we encourage all people to document their local biodiversity in whatever way they can during the April event dates.

Canada is Set to Take on the World!

The City Nature Challenge is a friendly annual international challenge to see which city can record and upload the most observations of wildlife species using the free iNaturalist platform. From the tiniest bug to the tallest tree, from belugas to birds to beavers, participants are encouraged to take pictures of all the flora and fauna they can find. By doing so, they’re contributing to an international database used to track biodiversity around the world. It’s a great way to turn a simple walk in the woods into truly impactful “citizen science” activity.

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Download poster >

The City Nature Challenge 2025 takes place over a nine day period from April 25 through May 4, 2025.

There are two parts to the program:

April 25 – April 28, 2025

Record and upload photos and sounds of wild plants and animals. During this period, participants across Canada and around the world will be recording and uploading photos and sounds of all the wild plants and animals they can find in participating cities (see list below). If you’re not in a participating Canadian city, you can still make observations.

April 29 — May 4, 2025

Finish uploading photos and sound recordings that were taken during April 25 – April 28, 2025. Help identify observations. This is the period where participants can finish uploading their photos and sound recordings that were taken from April 25 – April 28, 2025. More important, this is a time for anyone with expertise in species identification to help officially identify as many of the observations as possible. Only observations that have an identification will count towards the total. Plus identifications that are confirmed by two or more people become “research grade” and more trustworthy for use in conservation. Even beginners can help out by identifying simple things or high level ID (such as “conifer”), but we also need experts to share their knowledge.

Why Participate in the City Nature Challenge?

Bragging rights, for one. We have a different climate that sets us apart from more southern areas, so CNC Canada is setting up our own Canada-wide challenge, nested within the international CNC 2024 event. Pick a friendly fight with another Canadian community; you can even put a friendly wager on the table. Any way you look at it, biodiversity wins. Knowing what species are found in each city helps conservationists study and protect them, and the CNC is a way for scientists, land managers and the community to come together for the common good of documenting nature in the area.

Connect with nature and your community. This is a chance to explore some of the areas in your community and discover biodiversity right outside your door – from the local park to sidewalk edges and your own backyard.

Learn from experts. CNC attracts many experts in a focused attempt to identify everything found during the event. The more species that get identified the greater the tally grows. If you find something and you don’t know what it is, chances are someone will help identify it for you.

Help Canada accept the challenge! Don’t live in a participating city? Get them involved for next year by talking with your municipality, a local organization or take it on yourself! Contact us to learn what’s involved.

Participate

How to Participate

Find Wildlife
It can be any plant, animal, or any other evidence of life found in your city.

Take a Picture
Take pictures of all the wild plants and animals you can find in your area. You can also upload sound recordings of any animals you hear. And as always, be sure to note its location..

Share
Upload your photos or sound recordings on iNaturalist.ca or the iNaturalist app. Your observations will be automatically included in the City Nature Challenge.

Whether you’re organizing an event in your city, joining an event already being planned, or just looking for a way to connect locally with nature, there are many ways to participate in both CNC and the tracking of biodiversity in your own community.

PEOPLE WITHIN A PARTICIPATING CITY

Contribute Observations – This is the primary goal of the CNC. You can participate as an observer just by using iNaturalist.ca. Open your account. Upload observations. There are many great resources you can download to help get your started. Find them here: https://inaturalist.ca/pages/ca-resources .
Contribute Identifications – Even beginners can help out by identifying simple things or high level ID (such as “conifer”), but we also need experts to share their knowledge. Identifications can be made directly. (Note: this page will be empty until the first observation is posted on April 26, 2024).
Spread the Word or Volunteer – Reach out to your friends, community groups or local organizations to encourage them to participate and also spread the word.. Appeal to your Mayor and councilors to get involved (if they aren’t already!). You can also contact organizers of a CNC event to find out about what else you can do and volunteer for the event – you can do this by :

visiting the project page on iNaturalist.ca
Click through to the participating city
Click “read more”
Click on the Project Admin’s username
Send a direct message on the platform to the Project admin (you will need to be logged in to see this option)

PEOPLE ACROSS CANADA

Not every community can participate, but you can still help track Canada’s biodiversity and contribute to conservation.

Start by downloading your free iNaturalist app for IOS and Android devices. You can also access iNaturalist.ca direct on your computer. Using iNaturalist is as easy as snapping photos of plants and animals during the event and any other time of year. Check out the easy steps to participate using iNaturalist Canada.

Help contribute to the total number of verified observations being made across Canada by going online to be a virtual identifier for observations within participating communities. Even if the only species you know is the Blue Jay, you can still help. Verifying the observations is as important as making them.

If you have more in-depth knowledge of wildlife, you can help teach and inspire those just starting out by identifying observations and commenting on their finds.

GENERAL USE OF INATURALIST

City Nature Challenge presents a great opportunity to join citizen scientists around the world in using iNaturalist. However, you can put your iNaturalist app to use year-round, tracking biodiversity wherever and whenever you’re in the mood to observe nature. Simply create your account on iNaturalist. Make sure you register your account on iNaturalist.ca (this is the Canadian platform). Join projects that interest you; CWF has a number of interesting projects registered on iNaturalist.

Download poster >

inaturalist user

Create your own iNaturalist account

To participate in the CNC event, you need to open your free iNaturalist account by following the steps:

Visit iNaturalist.ca

Head to iNaturalist.ca to download your free iNaturalist app. No matter how you connect to nature, use the iNaturalist app in Canada and help us continue to track biodiversity wherever you are.

Go Now >

Download App

Download the app from the AppStore or Google Play

Sign In or Up

Upload Observations

Using the iNaturalist App or your account on iNaturalist.ca, start sharing your observations – any observation recorded between April 28 to May 1, 2023 will be automatically added.

Join the CNC Canada Project

Join the CNC Canada project to get updates and other information.

Join >

Get Feedback

Get feedback from actual scientists, experts, and other naturalists on each observation.

Out of the participating cities in Canada:

74,972

Total Number of Observations

4,433

Total Number of Species

3,728

Total Number of Participants

Top 4 Species Recorded

Mallard

Canada Goose

American Robin

Red-winged Blackbird

Thank You!

We wanted to take this opportunity to thank our city organizers, participants and identifiers who have made the 2023 City Nature Challenge a success in Canada. The City Nature Challenge was a great springtime event for people to connect to nature and contribute to scientific research at the same time.

By continuing to upload observations to iNaturalist.ca all year long, you continue to provide invaluable information to track Canada's biodiversity and influence conservation in Canada. The City Nature Challenge would not be possible without the support of people like you!