This August long weekend the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) has an opportunity for southwest residents to slow down and connect with nature, even if it's just in their backyards.
It's easy, free fun for the whole family to take part in the fourth annual Big Backyard BioBlitz, and the data that biologists collect from the event helps conservation organizations across the country.
Kayla Burak, engagement manager for the NCC, explained that all people have to do is take a picture with their phone and upload it to the app iNaturalist.
"The cool thing about this event is that no matter where you are over the long weekend, whether you're just staying home, going for a walk at your favorite local green space, or going camping somewhere, you can take pictures of anything you see," she said. "People in the southwest have a really unique opportunity because the higher concentration of species at risk because of the native grassland. So that's cool in itself. You never know what you're going to see."
Last year, people uploaded 59,000 observations, 2,108 of which were taken by Saskatchewan residents. They ranged from little brown bat, pronghorn, grizzly bear, bighorn sheep, humpback whale, and great blue herons to plains bison. There were also 1,947 species at risk documented, most notably monarch butterflies and barn swallows.
Baby’s breath, an invasive plant species that is damaging native prairie grasslands and forage areas, was a common invasive species reported in Saskatchewan.
"Everything helps, I can't stress that enough," Burak added. "If there's an invasive species that is coming close to some of the land we have, we need to know about these things so we can kind of adjust our management actions and plans accordingly. Not only do municipalities and different organizations use that information to control that invasive species, but we keep an eye out for it as well, so that we can know if it's coming our way."
The bioblitz runs from today through Monday, and anyone can get involved as much or little as they'd like. Step outside, snap a picture, and send it off to biologists and conservationists across the country.