CNC:NYC - RESULTS ARE IN!

The results are in for 2024! Thank you to everyone who participated in the City Nature Challenge in New York City and around the world!

This year, 690 cities across 51 countries participated in the City Nature Challenge and together we've beaten last year's global observation record! Over 83 thousand people across the globe made over 2.4 million observations of over 65 thousand species. The most observed species globally was the Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos). The global organizers at the California Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of LA created an awesome infographic with these results and some other interesting finds. Check it out here.

New York City Results

Wow, NYC! You did an amazing job! Together, NYC had 25,314 observations of 2,193 species made by 987 people! This is over 10K more observations than last year and just 445 observations shy of our 2019 record. Of our 2024 observations, 22,238 of them are verifiable and represent 1,967 species for New York City.

CNC brought 431 new NYC observers to iNaturalist and (currently) 9,808 new "Research Grade" observations. There are 95 new to iNat species for NYC from our verifiable observations and of those 19* new to iNat species have been confirmed as Research Grade. Great job, everyone! *Note: this has been corrected from 22 to reflect the 9am 5/6 results (although this number will continue to change going forward).

The City Nature Challenge is a collaborative celebration of biodiversity and the 691 participating cities were not competing against each other. However, as always, we do have some interesting comparisons to report. Out of the 56 similarly-sized geographic areas (between 500-999 sq. km), New York City is ranked FIRST for observations and number of observers! We're second behind Berlin for number of species found.

Let's give a shoutout to our top observers, species finders, and identifiers in NYC, and an extra special shout out to @mugglelissa who is ranked #19 globally for observations in the whole City Nature Challenge!

Top 10 NYC Observers

@mugglelissa, @bzedu, @jesseanne, @zitserm, @klodonnell, @srall, @lisabrundage, @zihaowang, @kirasofiia, @chipwilcox

Top 10 NYC Species Finders

@zihaowang, @zitserm, @mugglelissa, @srall, @bzedu, @chipwilcox, @jesseanne, @siwnaturalist, @nycnatureobserver, @sus_scrofa

Top 10 NYC VERIFIABLE Species Finders

@zihaowang, @zitserm, @mugglelissa, @srall, @chipwilcox, @bzedu, @siwnaturalist, @sus_scrofa, @klodonnell, @nycnatureobserver

Top 10 NYC Identifiers

@nycnatureobserver, @hcoste, @peakaytea, @spuytenduyvilny, @spaceopossum, @sus_scrofa, @foxsu, @xris, @zahnerphoto, @igor_kuzmin

Observation Highlights

Here are some exciting finds from our NYC observation list. Let us know in the comments below what you were most excited to find or if any of the observations from the list are particularly exciting to you.

@xris found a mating pair of Telmatogeton japonicus in Sunset Park. It's one of only 22 records on iNat and of only 4 in NYC. ETA: @zitserm found the first record during the 2022 City Nature Challenge.

@zihaowang, @pilcrowchevron, and @lovisalden observed Dacne picta in Brooklyn and these three observations are the first records on iNat for this species in all of North America.

@djringer took some fantastic photos and wrote a nice description of this Pileated Woodpecker on Governors Island.

And finally, not a rare species, but a couple of project members really enjoy the strut of this Boat-tailed Grackle (second photo) observed by @siwnaturalist. It's very New York.

Battle of the Boroughs

The Bronx stayed strong throughout the challenge and is the winner for the most observations. The most species were found in Queens, and the most observers were in Brooklyn.

Let's also recognize the top observer and species finder in each borough. Many of them are returning champions. They are:
Bronx: @mugglelissa (both)
Brooklyn: @lisabrundage (obs) and @zihaowang (spp)
Manhattan: @jesseanne (obs) and @nycnatureobserver (spp)
Queens: @zitserm (both)
Staten Island: @srall (both)

And let's give a big thank you to our borough captains for leading the way in their boroughs: @xris and @cofa in Brooklyn.

Greenspace Race

This year, 14 NYC green spaces joined the Greenspace Race. Together, 325 observers made 9,235 observations of 1210 species. That's almost double their 5000 observation goal, which they reached on Day 3.

MANY THANKS

We absolutely could not run a successful CNC:NYC without all of our wonderful partner organizations: Alley Pond Environmental Center, American Museum of Natural History, Billion Oyster Project, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, City Parks Foundation, Eastern Queens Alliance, Fort Greene Park Conservancy, Friends of McGolrick Park, Friends of Spuyten Duyvil, Genspace, Girl Scouts of Greater NY, Green-Wood Cemetery, Greenbelt Conservancy, Jamaica Bay Rockaway Parks Conservancy, Local Nature Lab, Macaulay Honors College, Manhattan Land Trust, Natural Areas Conservancy, New York Botanical Garden, North Brooklyn Parks Alliance, NYC Parks, NYC Pollinator Working Group, Pratt Institute Math & Science Department, Randall’s Island Park Alliance, Solar One, The Bee Conservancy, The High Line, Torrey Botanical Society, Trust for Governors Island, Urban Park Rangers, Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, and Washington Square Park Eco Projects. Everything you did for CNC has helped us get a huge number of New Yorkers out observing the nature of our city. Thank you for everything you did to make this year an amazing success, including attending planning meetings, spreading the word about CNC, and making your own observations and identifications, and many many thanks especially to those of you who hosted or organized CNC-related events this year to help people participate in the challenge. You all are what makes the City Nature Challenge such a success! THANK YOU!

We also would like to thank some fantastic Macaulay Honors College student volunteers who attended events and served as iNaturalist pros to help the participants started on iNaturalist: @yellowtulip, @radar_j , @eri-k-a, @selyu, @slin015, @respectable_absorption, @gretcheninthecity, @tiffany_marchese1, @xylofish, and @edcnewyork. THANK YOU!

We would also like to thank the office of New York City Council Member Gale Brewer for her generous support of the City Nature Challenge in NYC. Funds provided by her office allowed us to create City Scientist Kits to give out at some of our public events, which contained items to help add details to iNaturalist observations. THANK YOU!


The dates have already been set for next year's CNC: April 25, 2025 - April 28, 2025! It will be the TENTH CNC and the theme will be "Bring the Globe Together for Biodiversity." For NYC, there won't be much activity until late in Summer 2024, but if you join the CNC:NYC 2025 project page now, you'll get updates when they are posted. Until then, happy observing!

Thank you, NYC, for a great City Nature Challenge!

Julkaistu toukokuu 7, 2024 02:11 AP. käyttäjältä klodonnell