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The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) is hoping to expand its views of species in Saskatchewan with the Big Backyard Bioblitz, which begins later this week.
The event, which lasts from August 1 to 5, will ask Saskatchewan residents who are in nature to take photos of any notable wildlife or plant species they see.
Kayla Burak, an Engagement Manager with the NCC, says it's not a hugely involved activity.
"The cool thing about this is that you can take part from anywhere, if you're staying home for the long weekend, cool. If you're going out camping or just for a walk in your favorite local park, you can take part."
"Basically, all you do is take pictures of anything you see, look down, look up everything matters and you take pictures, upload them onto an app called iNaturalist, which you will be told how to do when you register."
The information gathered from the BioBlitz is used both for identifying current trends as well as creating a reputable source for future studies.
"This information is used not only this year if you, you know, find a rare or a rare species or an invasive species that that's really important for us to know about right now. But even common species are really important to still capture because in 5-10 years, both species might not be common anymore and we need to look back on trends and observations."
Burak says that what people take pictures of isn't as important as how many pictures they take.
"In particular, any kind of weeds, honestly, an invasive species are just as important as what you might be tempted to take pictures of like, you know, pretty flowers, the birds. If you think it's invasive or bad, take a picture of it. Things you might not think of like insects, dragonflies, and bees, there's lots of bee research going on in Saskatchewan. Any kind of flowers, butterflies, things like that. Everything's important, the whole spectrum."
Once people register on NCC's website, they'll be told to download the iNaturalist app which can do a lot of the work for them.
"When you upload your photos to the app in our project specifically, which you'll be told the name of, it's just Big Backyard BioBlitz and you don't have to know what it is for sure. So when you upload it, iNaturalist will give a suggestion on what it is so you don't have to know, you can still upload it. The cool thing about iNaturalist is that it's a community of scientists. So not only biologists with NCC, but biologists across the country are looking at this data and we'll verify what it is for you."