A place full of "wild" organisms that are not all wild

General
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Hi all,

I’ve recently noticed a widespread issue of observations being marked “wild” that are not necessarily but I don’t know how to fix it.

Spectacle Island is in the Boston Harbor Islands. This island is a public park so it’s a popular iNat spot. Trouble is, this island is actually a landfill that was sealed and capped with soil. Landscape architects were brought in and eventually 28,000 plants were placed on the capped landfill.

Many of these species were not native (e.g. Siberian elm, black pine). Some were native. However, it has been nearly 20 years since the planting was completed, and what’s more, the original planting map the architects put together is not 100% accurate. As such, it is very difficult to know exactly what was put there on purpose and what was not.

Does anyone have any ideas of how we could go about making these data more accurate? Pretty much everything people have logged on the island is currently logged as “wild” but that’s certainly not true for the strategically placed pin oaks, trembling aspens, northern barberry, eastern redcedar, etc. And those plants that were placed on purpose have certainly spread around since the original planting.

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In general, the only available approach is to keep the captive/wild guidelines handy and then use your judgement on a case-by-case basis. If you are sure that particular plant was planted right there, mark it captive. If you aren’t sure whether that particular stem might have spread there by itself, leave it as wild. The data quality will never be perfect, so don’t beat yourself up about not being able to make it perfect.

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I would tweak a version of that as a copypasta - ready for people who may disagree with you, because they didn’t know the history.

Or make a collection project for Spectacle Island? Then you can tell the story, with some useful links.

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