Texas City Nature Challenge
April 28 to May 1, 2023

City Nature Challenge is back in full force for 2023, celebrating the natural world while documenting our local wild plants and animals. The TNT team invites all Texans to participate in this year’s event, getting out and enjoying the natural world, whether from your own back yard, local neighborhood park or trails, or other, more wild places.

Please note: Did you know that you can help others identify their observations following the four day CNC event? Help identify what was found anytime between May 2 nd and May 7 th , building upon Research Grade observations across the state while helping others confirm their discoveries!

Take the City Nature Challenge!

Join Texas Parks & Wildlife, Texas Master Naturalists, the Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy and others in a fun challenge to see which city can document the most species. It is easy to participate by joining an event or making observations on your own using iNaturalist — sign up on iNaturalist.org and download the App for your device: iNaturalist for iOS and iNaturalist for Android.

Once again, this year you can participate in City Nature Challenge even if you don’t live in one of the metro areas. Visit City Nature Challenge 2023 Global Project. Simply click on the link, join the project and you are ready to join the fun.

With the iNaturalist App, you just take a picture of a plant or animal and the community will help identify what species it is.

Any observation made during the four days of the event in the greater metropolitan area of each city will count towards the challenge.

You can participate by exploring the life in your backyard, in your local park or on a field trip with your local naturalist group.

To find out if your metro area is participating, check the list below and get involved! Not only is this a competition between metropolitan areas across Texas, cities across the world are participating — let's show them what we've got! Be sure to check out the City Nature Challenge Website to see the list of global participants.

For answers to your questions or for more information, contact our Texas Nature Tracker biologists at tracker@tpwd.texas.gov.

If you’re new to iNaturalist, learn more with the iNaturalist Getting Started Guide.