#43: Alison Young - The City Nature Challenge

Apr 4, 2022

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Today’s guest is Alison Young, Co-Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Community Science at the California Academy of Sciences. Alison has a background in marine biology, including a MA in Marine Biology from Humboldt State University and a BA in Biology from Swarthmore College.

At the Cal Academy, Alison is a driving force behind the City Nature Challenge, which is a 4 day global BioBlitz event that had over 1.25 million nature observations in 2021 across 400 different global locations. Mark your calendars! This year it runs from April 29 to May 2 local time, and I hope all of you plan to participate! I know my calendar is full of fun and unique events all four days!

Today Alison and I discuss the community, science, and fun that is the City Nature Challenge, and how you can participate in this year’s event. Whether you live in a city or not, in northern or southern latitudes, or are stuck at home, you can participate, and Alison offers wonderful insights for all of those scenarios.

We discuss the goals of the challenge, and of course, exactly what it is. Alison also tells us how the City Nature Challenge grew from what was initially thought to be a one-time competition between two rival cities - Los Angeles and San Francisco, to the massive annual event that it is today.

And Alison offers several tips for making useful observations in iNaturalist, taking good photos, and how to make the City Nature Challenge a fun and enticing event even if the season or weather isn’t what you’d consider optimal for your area.

You can get more information at citynaturechallenge.org, and follow the city nature challenge at citnatchallenge on both twitter and instagram. And follow Alison at alisonkestrel on Twitter and Instagram, or just kestrel on iNaturalist.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Links
People, Events, Organizations
Great Southern BioBlitz - an event for the Southern Hemisphere
Julia Butterfly Hill - lived in a Redwood tree for 738 days to draw attention and prevent cutting of rare old growth redwoods
Lila Higgins, Senior Manager, Community Science at Natural History Museum of LA County
Snapshot Cal Coast - A California Coast bioblitz event

Books
The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen. This 1997 book was influential to Alison.

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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

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