Valencia County residents invited to join City Nature Challenge this weekend

Valencia County families can turn a walk into usable science data by snapping photos for the City Nature Challenge, a four-day bioblitz running across Bernalillo, Sandoval and Valencia counties through April 27. The annual event, now in its 11th year, will publish results on May 13, and every observation is added to biodiversity data that researchers, land managers and policymakers can use later.

Joining takes only a few steps. Create an iNaturalist account, head outside, and photograph wild animals, plants, fungi or signs of animals. Upload what you find through iNaturalist, then keep helping identify other observations through May 10. The local Albuquerque-area project says more than 400 cities on 6 continents are participating in 2026, so a Saturday morning photo walk in Valencia County feeds into a much larger worldwide comparison.

The best places to start in Valencia County are the same places many residents already use for outdoor time: the Rio Grande corridor, local parks, wetlands and conservation areas. The New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science says anyone outdoors in Valencia County can participate, along with participants in Bernalillo, Grant, Los Alamos, Rio Arriba, Sandoval and Santa Fe counties. That makes the challenge a countywide invitation, not a single park event, and it gives families a low-cost way to spend time outside while adding records to the state’s natural history.

What residents are most likely to document are the creatures and life forms that are easiest to spot on an ordinary weekend outing: birds, plants, fungi and the traces animals leave behind. That simple recordkeeping matters. iNaturalist says the challenge has generated more than 12.9 million observations worldwide over 10 years, and the 2025 challenge alone produced 3,310,131 observations from 102,945 people. Even one photo from a Valencia County trail, drainage, wetland or river edge becomes part of that larger archive.

The challenge began in 2016 as a contest between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the ABQ City Nature Challenge says 2026 is its eighth year participating. Local organizers are also tying the effort to county pride, with incentives that include a prize for the participant who records the most species across Bernalillo, Sandoval and Valencia counties. For Valencia County residents, the weekend’s message is direct: go outside, notice what is living around you, and help build the record of the county’s environment.