Citizen science event to takes over Geelong and Surf Coast

THE Geelong Field Naturalists Club is encouraging residents across Greater Geelong and the Surf Coast to take part in the world’s biggest citizen science event next week.

The City Nature Challenge takes the form of a bioblitz-style battle, with cities across the globe competing against each other to see who can document the greatest number of nature observations over a four-day period.

This year the competition will run from April 26-29.

To participate, community members and citizen scientists need only photograph the flora and fauna they see and upload it to the iNaturalist app or website.

Everything from birds, insects and wildlife to plants, fungi and seaweed can be recorded as part of the event.

Local challenge coordinator Peter Crowcroft said the competition was a great way to get the community outside and engaging with nature.

“It’s a great opportunity to go out and learn about what else lives where you live,” he said.

“I’d certainly love to think that it gives people more of a sense of connection, more of a sense of place, to where they live.”

The challenge first began in 2016 as an eight-day competition between Los Angeles and San Francisco and has since grown to involve more than 550 cities each year.

Mr Crowcroft said all observations uploaded during the challenge become data points that help to inform our understanding of biodiversity in the region.

“That’s the wonder of the iNaturalist platform for me,” he said.

“It makes something accessible which hasn’t always been accessible for everyone and that’s the ability to do actual science.”

The platform also gives those with an interest in the natural environment access to a variety of experts.

“Say you go snorkelling and you photograph fish – when you upload that, the experts in Australia on fish species are on iNaturalist and they’ll check it out and they’ll help you identify what it is,” Mr Crowcroft said.

With the City Nature Challenge originating in the northern hemisphere, Mr Crowcroft said April can be a “sleepy time” for flora and fauna in the southern hemisphere.

He said this makes the event “a good warm up” for the Great Southern Bioblitz which will take place during the spring in September.

For more information, head to citynaturechallenge.org, email the Geelong Field Naturalists Club [email protected] or follow the club on Facebook.