Edge Case #1 Someone needs to clear an area of soil, but there is a plant growing in that soil. This person digs up the plant and replants it a few feet away, outside of the cleared area. Is the plant now cultivated? In my eyes it’s similar to the example of a wild plant being put in a pot being cu…

I would call cases 1-2.5 cultivated. Even in case 2, where the person didn’t necessarily intend the seed to grow, they did intend to place the organism (the seed) where it ends up growing. So the organism is present in that time and place based on human intention. A viable seed is just as much a val…

[image] jan-konilu: then start maintaining it Is moving leaves and twigs aside to photograph a tiny plant, then forgetting to put these back in place, a form of “maintenance”? The plant will likely benefit from this intentional human intervention (less competition for sun, water, etc.)

That can just as easily be a detriment to the plant too. Those sorts of things help to shade the ground and assist in moisture retention.

I regret that iNat choses to morph Not Wild to Cultivated. Using the c-word confuses people. Only for #1 would I need your comment for an obvious garden plant - wild plant moved - then I would call all of them Wild. If the seed were deliberately planted to feed birds, that’s a crop, cultivated,…

Any opinions on this one: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/135784595 It’s a Brown Recluse, clearly outside of its range, found while unpacking boxes from a different state. How do we normally handle obvious “hitchhikers” or “stoyaways” like this?

A previous thread on hitchhikers: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/marking-hitchhikers-traveling-species-which-is-the-best-way/39346 though there are likely others too In general, they would not be captive if it’s not an intentional movement of the organism by humans.

I was wondering about this, too. There’s a pond near my friend’s house in England where a man keeps a collection of waterfowl, and while most are banded and pinioned, but there are native species present as well that breed and come and go, but which were originally placed there by the collector. Do …

Those waterfowl are so confusing that I would mark them all wild and let somebody else worry about it.

Any organisms that are free to come and go as they please would be wild, whether introduced themselves or the offspring of introduced organisms. I’d think of these as roughly akin to ferals cats/dogs or escaped pets. If they are pinioned and unable to leave the area where they were introduced (like …

That’s been my approach so far! It’s pretty confusing. There seem to be a lot of “semi-wild” animal populations in the UK that are lightly maintained by collectors, gamekeepers, etc and toe the line of wild and captive.

[image] jan-konilu: If a person was to take a plant already present in the environment and then start maintaining it as if it were planted, would it be considered cultivated? Would there be any level of maintenance short of potting it where it would become cultivated, and where would you draw th…

A few Captive/Cultivated edge cases

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A few Captive/Cultivated edge cases

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