City Nature Challenge 2019: Sacramento Region's Boletim

The dust has finally settled, and the final CNC global numbers are in. With 2019 being the first year the Sacramento Region has participated in the Challenge, us co-organizers had no idea what to expect. With a budget of zero dollars, and volunteering our time to spreading the word, we half expected it would only be us adding observations throughout the weekend. But BOY were we wrong, Sacramento! You all STEPPED UP and blew our 8,000 observation goal out of the water!

We are so proud of our community answering to the call for observations for our city. The real winner, of course, is science for the almost 1,000,000 observations from 159 cities the world added in just 4 days, and nature for the over 35,000 users who went outside and looked around. Over 31,000 species were documented, including more than 1,100 rare, endangered, or threatened species. Check out the City Nature Challenge website for more info graphics.

Here are some fun stats to celebrate from the Sacramento Region:

• Overall, Sacramento came in 30th out of 159 participating cities
• Of 27 the other participating cities with a population of 2,500,000-5,000,000, Sacramento came in 9th
• In all of 2019 leading up to the Challenge, post-Challenge our region was able to increase the number of observations by 7.8% (9832 observations), species by 2% (124 species), and observers by 3.5% (233 observers).
• Sacramento came in 5th for the number of total observers for a region > 20,000 km2
• Sacramento had an average of 18 observations per person
• For all the observations we collected in the Sacramento region, 57% ID’d to species became research grade (or useable for scientific quality data).

We've learned a lot, so we have plenty of ideas and we can't wait to be back again next year. Special thanks to our top contributors for 2019:
@norasaurus @vermfly @lglevanik @simpylmare55 @phylogenomics @lindagal2 @haileyadler @sarahangulo @lacigerhart @paloma @julie253 @justin2 @cjadallah @bonnie_beth

And thank you to ALL who participated in ANY way, your contributions matter for science and nature. See ya in 2020!

The big City Nature Challenge weekend is over, and now we can take a breather, whew. JUST KIDDING. There is still tons of work to be done to help the Sacramento Region win before the results are announced on May 6!

If you have any photos you haven’t uploaded, be sure the “Date Observed” is April 26-29, and you upload it before May 5. You can also help by going through the observations that we collected and identify them. We need at least 2 people to confirm the species for an observation to become Research Grade. With over 9,000 observations Sacramento collected, we can really use your help identifying all of those for science.

Get going and big thanks to users @hailey_adler, @paloma, @justin2, @cjadallah, and @lglevanik for being the top 5 identifiers so far!

The Sacramento CNC organizers are absolutely BLOWN away by the amount of participation we've had in our project so far in its inaugural year. Thank you to our almost 450 observers who have contributed to this massive, global citizen science effort. You've all shown what beautiful and important organisms we have in this special part of the world, and helped put Sacramento on the map.

We are incredibly close to reaching our goal of 8,000 observations by 11:59 PM tonight! Our total observations are now at 7,629 which means that if every one of our current 446 observers made just one more observation, we'd hit our goal of 8,000! Continuing to add observations keeps us high up on the global City Nature Challenge 2019 rankings - as of 7:55 AM we're sitting at 25th for the number of observations. AMAZING job, everyone, let's hit that target and beyond today!

City Nature Challenge observations must be made by the end of Monday, but you have through next Sunday, May 5 to get them uploaded.

GO, GO, GO!

The first day of the City Nature Challenge isn't even over yet and we have already reached over 2,000 observations! That's a quarter of the way towards our goal of 8,000 observations - keep up the amazing work everyone!

So far we have identified 524 species, with the most observed species being he California Poppy, and have 2,136 identifications. Shout-out to user @vermfly for having the most observations (177) and most species (125) in our project, you rock!

Couldn't get outside today? That's okay! Help identify other users identifications to get them up to research grade.

Great work Sacramento Region!

The 2019 City Nature Challenge started at midnight this morning and we are already up and rolling with nearly 200 observations!!

Check out our website (https://cncsacramento.home.blog/) for details on upcoming events and follow CNCSacramento on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for up-to-the-minute details on our progress!!

The 2019 City Nature Challenge is only a week away and the Sacramento Region has some exciting events coming up to help you prepare!

Join the iNaturalist Sacramento Region Project!
Becoming a member of the Sacramento Region iNat Project will keep you updated on our progress towards our goal of 8,000 observations! All iNaturalist posts will be automatically added to the Sacramento Region project, and joining the project will allow you to easily see other participants’ observations and how our results compare to other City Nature Challenge regions!

iNaturalist Training Party: Mary Stephens Public Library, Davis, CA
Saturday April 20, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm, 315 E 14th St, Davis, C

iNaturalist Training Party: Shields Library (UCD Campus), Davis CA
Monday April 22, 12:00 – 3:00 pm, 100 NW, N Quad, UC Davis Campus

These come-and-go events are for potential CNC participants to practice using iNaturalist ‘in the field’! Sacramento Region organizers will be on hand to help participants download the app, take and upload photos to the app, and ID organisms they photograph; as well as answer questions about the CNC event as a whole.

The Sacramento Region organizers for the City Nature Challenge (CNC) would like to invite you to a planning meeting for area partners to discuss coordination and logistics for the upcoming City Nature Challenge. Detailed information on the CNC and Sacramento Region events and organizers can be found at https://cncsacramento.home.blog/

Tagged in this post are frequent iNat contributors to the Sac Region who may be interested in attending the meeting and/or learning more about the City Nature Challenge: @joshuagsmith @graysquirrel @kevinhintsa @biohexx1 @john8 @greglasley @pdvmushroom @grnleaf @faerthen @ripple @kueda @sapienshane @loarie @garyg @rajibmaulick @madfox @bugman1388 @robirwin @yerbasanta @glmory @richardwasson @dominic @dwest @aguilita @tlaloc27 @alan_rockefeller @johnplischke @davidepuddu @damontighe @catchang @tiwane @tmessick

The partner meeting will be held Wednesday March 27th at 4:00 pm at 1460 Drew Avenue, Suite 100, Davis CA. Participants who cannot attend in person are welcome to attend via Zoom https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/5307501396 and the meeting audio will be recorded and shared with participants on request. Please RSVP for the meeting at https://goo.gl/forms/SSt2JFe125CPlaxC2

Agenda items for the meeting include an overview of the City Nature Challenge, our goals for the Sacramento Region participation, an introduction to Sacramento Region organizers and partners, types of participation (including advertising, organizing bioblitzes, and hosting other events), a review of resources and support available for hosting events, and an introduction to using iNaturalist for nature observations.

If you or another representative of your organization would like to attend the meeting or have access to the recorded meeting, please fill out the RSVP form at https://goo.gl/forms/SSt2JFe125CPlaxC2

Thank you!
-The Sacramento Region Organizers: Sarah Angulo @sarahangulo, Laci Gerhart-Barley @lacigerhart, Ryan Meyer @ryanmeyer2, Chelle Temple-King @chelegans, and Juliana Yee @juliana_yee