Greetings Boston CNC participants!
We hope you are enjoying the summer weather, the singing birds, blooming plants, and active insects. Thanks again for contributing your observations in the City Nature Challenge! With your help, Boston achieved:
3945 observations
748 species
262 participants
While we did not finish in the top 3, Boston did a fantastic job finding wildlife after a long, cold winter and spring! Compared to the same five days last year, we made over 27x as many observations and documented 9 times as many species. Nearly 1,900 observations of 450 species reached "research grade" status and will flow to open biodiversity platforms: observation data to Global Biodiversity Information Facility and images to the Encyclopedia of Life.
And across the country, the 5 days of the CNC were the BIGGEST days in iNaturalist history. For the 16 participating cities, the totals were:
125,819 observations (whoa!)
8,636 species
4,246 people
You can read the full results here.
Next year, the CNC will go INTERNATIONAL! If you want to continue building your naturalist skills or just spend more time outdoors, here are a few ideas to stay involved:
- Search for public programs at your local parks and conservation lands such as Mass Audubon, DCR state parks, Boston city parks, greenbelts, Emerald Necklace Conservancy, and more!
- Visit our local national parks, wildlife refuges, and Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary
Brush up on your natural history knowledge at Boston's awesome museums, aquariums, and zoos: Museum of Science, New England Aquarium, Harvard Museum of Natural History, Franklin Park Zoo, Stone Zoo, and more
-Join one of the Boston area hiking, photography, or naturalist groups on Facebook or Meetup.com such as Cape Ann Area Naturalist Meetup
Stay tuned for updates on the 2018 City Nature Challenge to compete against cities around the world and contribute to our understanding of global biodiversity!