Hoake ki te Taiao
City Nature Challenge

Hoake ki te Taiao
City Nature Challenge 

There is nature all around us! Knowing what species are in our city and where they are helps us study and protect them. One way to do that is through citizen science projects which identify and document the wild things in our city.

The City Nature Challenge is an annual global event where cities compete to see who can log the most nature observations on iNaturalist over four days. The City Nature Challenge is a wonderful way to connect to Te Taiao, and taking part is simple.

2025 results

In 2025, Wellington City Council worked with regional partners to grow the City Nature Challenge in our region, expanding the target area to include everywhere within the Greater Wellington Regional Council boundary.

Over 18,500 observations were uploaded on the iNaturalist app in Te Upoko o te Ika, and a total of 2,715 species were recorded by 360 observers. See the full results from the campaign on the iNaturalist website.

Share your nature discoveries with iNaturalist

We're always finding new species living in Wellington. Use iNaturalist to record your observations of special species you find outdoors. If you’re not sure what something is, other users can help identify it for you.

iNaturalist helps the user to identify plants and animals and record observations. iNaturalist is connecting Wellingtonians to a larger community of scientists and experts from all over the globe. iNaturalist is like the ‘Instagram for nature lovers’ and promotes the crowdsourcing of species identification.

Data from iNaturalist helps Universities and Councils understand where species may occur, and how we can better plan for, and protect Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

Download the iNaturalist app for Android

Download the iNaturalist app for Apple

Read instructions on how to make an observation in the app:

iNaturalist guide for Apple (897KB PDF)
iNaturalist guide for Android (811KB PDF)

Check out some images from iNaturalist below.