By Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist
SAN BENITO, TEXAS–The Lower Rio Grande Valley placed 10th in a recent City Nature Challenge bioblitz in competition with 67 other cities around the globe.
The challenge rated three levels of competition: most observations (of nature), most individual species and most people participating.
The four counties of the Lower Valley — Cameron, Hidalgo, Star and Willacy — entered as one entity and placed 10th for most species, 15th for most observations and 26th for most observers with 195 participants who photographed nature and uploaded images to the California-based iNaturalist website. In Texas, the Nature Tracker wildlife diversity division of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department helped host the multi-city challenge within the state.
The overall winner of the 2018 City Nature Challenge was the San Francisco Bay Area placing tops in all three categories: most observations: 41,737; most species found: 3,211; and most participants: 1,532.
Closer to home, it was steep competition comparing the four Lower Rio Grande Valley counties with the populations of the five top contenders like San Francisco Bay Area; Dallas/Fort Worth; San Diego; Klang Valley, Greater Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Washington, D.C.
The total observations from the Lower Rio Grande Valley reached 8,760; number of species, 1,660. More than 50 Texas Master Naturalists were included in the Lower Valley’s 195 count of participants.
Eight of the top ten Valley observers and species contributors were from the Valley’s two Texas Master Naturalist chapters. Two members of the 33 from the South Texas Border Chapter came in as top local observers. Joseph Conners, a macro butterflies, spiders and flies photographer contributed the most observations — 871 and 323 species to the count.
Seth Welliver, a McAllen nurseryman who has a passion for butterflies and their host plants captured 405 observations and 281 species.
Third place for most observations and top observer for the Rio Grande Valley Chapter, Texas Master Naturalist was nature columnist, photojournalist and workshop leader Anita Westervelt, with 337 observations, ranking eighth in species documented at 149.
The iNaturalist.org is a repository of valuable habitat information. Those using the electronic database may connect with experts who can identify observed and photographed organisms. Citizens help create useful data which helps scientists and researchers understand when and where organisms occur. For more information and results of the 2018 challenge, visit their website at www.iNaturalist.org.