Monday 6th May marked the end of the 2024 City Nature Challenge (CNC), a global bioblitz event – with a bit of competition! - which saw almost 700 cities recording nature in their area.
The recording weekend ran from 26th – 29th April, where globally 2.4 million observations of over 65,000 species were made, primarily on iNaturalist, whilst the remaining days until 6th May acted as a verification and upload period for the records collected.
Organised by the North & East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre (NEYEDC) with the help of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the University of Hull, The Deep, and other partners, the City Nature Challenge was brought to Hull in 2024 for the second year running.
Hull CNC 2024 was a great success, seeing the city place 7th overall and 6th for species in the UK leaderboard! 24 regions (or ‘cities’) took part across the UK this year, placing us in the top third of participants in the UK for both parameters. This is particularly impressive for a city like Hull, with a relatively small boundary and primarily urban habitats. Whilst the boundaries of some participating cities took in vast areas and encompassed a huge variety of habitats and sites, the challenge in Hull tried to remain true to the spirit of the event and was very much about looking deeper within the urban environment to highlight just how biodiverse such areas can be, whilst collecting records that can go on to influence conservation and decision-making in Hull.
Key Statistics
A total of 7,047 observations were made in 2024, comprised of mainly iNaturalist observations plus some additional records collected in traditional spreadsheet format. This saw an increase of over 2,800 records compared to 2023! Those observations were made up of 1,188 different species, an increase of 349 on our efforts in 2023. Records on iNaturalist were made by 63 observers, a small drop in numbers from 2023 where we saw 66, though it should be noted that NEYEDC added records on behalf of 4 recorders who submitted records in spreadsheet format to the iNaturalist project, who would otherwise be included as separate recorders, bringing us to 67 official recorders.
Hull’s CNC area was vastly smaller than most other UK regions taking part this year, which makes our result all the more impressive - Hull was one of only three regions with a combined area of less than 99km2. Of 21 UK regions officially signed up, most fell into the 2,000 – 4,999km2 area size bracket with the bulk of the remainder split between 500 – 999km2 and 1,000 – 1,9999km2 brackets, with the final two regions falling into the largest area bracket at 5,000-9,999 km2.
In Hull we recorded 86.47 observations and 14.47 species per km2, significantly higher than the averages for the top three city regions in the UK leaderboard!
Keep an eye out on our social media channels to find out more about you can get involved in the 2025 Hull City Nature Challenge!