In late April, Mountains to Sea Wellington (MTSW) and other environmental organisations in the region teamed up with local communities for the City Nature Challenge, an international initiative that aims to get people exploring and learning about te taiao.
The City Nature Challenge invites the community to come together for a bioblitz - making as many observations of living things in the environment as possible, within a three day period. Following that, expert identifiers review uploads and confirm the exact species, creating an exciting growing database created in the spirit of community and citizen science.
All around the world, the bioblitz observations are loaded onto iNaturalist, a free platform available as a phone app or on the web at www.iNaturalist.com. The idea is that whenever you see an interesting plant or animal, you can upload a photo of it with a note of the location. You can identify it or you can simply submit a photo and location and let other members of the platform put an expert eye and confirm the name of its species.
What’s so cool about iNaturalist is that anyone can participate, and help to build a database of the plants and animals around us not just locally- but around the world!
Julia Baldwin, Play and Active Recreation Project Specialist for the Wellington City Council and organiser of this year's event, said “The City Nature Challenge was a huge success! We had four days of still, beautiful weather in Wellington and recorded over 18,000 observations. Mountains to Sea Wellington supported three great events, connecting people to the awa and moana”.
MTSW Event #1 - Glenside Community Catchment Group Spotlights the Porirua Stream
At dusk on 26 April, MTSW’s Wai Connection crew teamed up with catchment-minded folks in Glenside to shine a light on the Porirua Stream to see some amazing stream life! The team completed a fish monitoring survey, snapping and uploading our photos to iNaturalist. Check out some of the awesome species that were spotted!
Thanks to Claire and Shelby from Glenside - The Halfway for helping to organise the event and for all the awesome restoration and monitoring mahi you guys do in Glenside!
MTSW Event #2 - Rocky Shore Bioblitz at Taputeranga Marine Reserve
On 27 April, nearly 70 folks gathered at Taputeranga Marine Reserve. Wellington City Council joined MTSW alongside insect and botany experts from Te Papa for a rocky shore bio-blitz looking at our rich coastal ecology.
We were also joined by Enviroschools Te Upoko o Te Ika a Māui, pictured here with our educator Joe, discovering all the wee things living on and between the rocks. Highlights included a rockfish - and a nudibranch!
Mountains to Sea Wellington’s educator Joe sharing knowledge with some young explorers.
Photo credit: Enviroschools Te Upoko o Te Ika a Māui
MTSW Event #3 - Central Park Spotlighting at the Moturoa Stream
Did you know that Wellington's Central Park is teaming with fresh water wildlife?
With so many of our stream creatures active at night, a flashlight is all you need to discover a whole new side of our local environment!
On 29th April, Mountains to Sea Wellington's Wai Connection team rolled up sleeves and co-hosted two spotlighting sessions at Central Park alongside the Wellington City Council, Te Papa, and EnviroSchools.
Whānau from Moriah Kindergarten and the local community were treated to a magical night checking out the fish, bugs and glow worms in the park.
The tamariki loved exploring the awa! They were excited to see an abundance of kōura (freshwater crayfish), and we were lucky enough to spot two handsome native fish - a banded kōkopu and a big kōaro!
Curious to see more of their discoveries? You can head to iNaturalist and click on Pōneke’s Central Park on the map to see the different fish, insects, and other creatures they found!
The results!
After these and many other events in the region, local experts reviewed the images uploaded and confirmed which species were identified. Once these numbers were crunched, cities were then able to compete directly to see not only who had the most identifications - but which cities had more biodiversity!
In our region,Te Upoko-o-te-Ika-a-Maui
Internationally -
Mountains to Sea Wellington was pleased to co-lead a number of community events.
Julia Baldwin from the Wellington City Council adds: “There were many events over the four-day challenge and we are so thankful to our partners who share their knowledge and their passion so freely. Thank you Mountains to Sea Wellington for support and the mahi you do.”
Further reading:
You can find out more about our local results at https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2024-te-upoko-o-te-ika-wellington
Lara from Te Papa has a wonderful blog post wrapping up the 2024 campaign and sharing some interesting finds.
