Backyard biodiversity helps statewide initiatives at Biodiversity Day 2023 events
At the Center for Community and Citizen Science, we love connecting people with opportunities for authentic science engagement. Every so often, we get to participate ourselves! Saturday, September 9, staff from the Center went to Effie Yeaw Nature Center at Ancil Hoffman County Park in Carmichael. We met colleagues from the California Academy of Sciences who were hosting a bioblitz alongside the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Natural Resources Agency.
This bioblitz was one of over 100 events held in celebration of California Biodiversity Day on September 7, 2023. The goal of these events was to provide opportunities for people to explore and document biodiversity where they live. Partners across the state all used the iNaturalist platform to share observations and demonstrate California’s incredible diversity of life.
At Effie Yeaw Nature Center, Dr. Jen Norris from the California Natural Resources Agency explained that documenting organisms as part of California Biodiversity Day helps the state in its 30×30 initiative. The initiative is part of a global effort to conserve 30% of lands and coastal waters by 2023. As California is the most biodiverse state in the US, knowing what species and where they are located is key to focusing efforts on conserving land.
During the bioblitz, we helped document over 600 observations of 180 species at Ancil Hoffman County Park. Some highlights include a mule deer, spined turban gall wasp, western fence lizard, gray buckeye butterfly, marsh ramshorn snail, and pumpkin gall wasp. Staff from the Center had fun participating in the biodiversity day challenge, which was to document 30 species from September 2 to 10. Our favorite observations were the galls, as we saw such a wide variety of different shapes, colors, and textures – even on a single tree.
If you’re interested in hosting a bioblitz like this one at your organization or school, check out the resources we’ve developed to get started.
We can’t wait to participate again next year!