To help Canadian scientist keep track of the plants and animals in the country, the public is encouraged to take part in the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s Big Backyard Bioblitz through the long weekend.

NCC Engagement Manager, Kayla Balderson, says people just need to take pictures of plants and animals, and upload them to a free app called iNaturalist for scientists to view and identify. This is the fourth year that the event has taken place. Last year in Saskatchewan, 2200 species were photographed. Across the country, 53,000 animal and plant species were identified.

Balderson says this event has both short term and long-term benefits. Short term, any invasive or rare species photographed and uploaded to the app will serve as very important data for scientists to collect and study. Longterm, in 10-15 years, scientists can use this data to study population trends of different species.