Conservation

Join the Texas City Nature Challenge

You’ve spent the past year rediscovering the beauty of nature in your own backyard. Now, you can take some photos to benefit those special plants and animals by documenting them for science in the 2021 Texas City Nature Challenge. You’ll become the next citizen scientist.

Join TPWD’s Texas Nature Trackers for the sixth annual challenge, April 30 through May 3. This global, community-based, scientific effort invites everyone to take pictures of wild plants, animals and fungi, then submit them using the free mobile app iNaturalist.

In 2019 nearly 3,400 participants contributed over 98,000 observations across 46 Texas counties of more 6,300 species. Seven metropolitan areas in Texas are hosting the City Nature Challenge, including Amarillo, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, El Paso, Houston-Galveston, the Lower Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio. 

Go to tpwd.texas.gov/naturechallenge to find links to the Texas projects, and learn more about the global project at citynaturechallenge.org.