Add a flag for translocated wild specimens

In some cases specimens are translocated by anthropogenic activities to a new location and a specimen is observed and uploaded to iNaturalist from that location, without being removed from the wild.
In these cases the captive/cultivated tag does not seem appropriate because they are still a wild individual (or are at the best of our knowledge from photos/asking poster).

It is my opinion these should still be considered research grade, because studying translocative movements of animals is a topic of research and thus these sightings are still very useful, they are still correctly identified and they are or were wild at the time of observation.

It would be really cool to a have a flag that could be ticked (in the data quality assessment?) that indicated when you believed a species is observed, in the wild, outside its range, but is not a range extension but an anthropogenically translocated specimen.

Can you give an example of this ?

It is just wild or captive/cultivated… there is no grey area indication in iNat. If it was wild at the time of the photo, mark as wild, and if the photo is at the location released, mark as captive/cultivated. I think it is irrelevant whether it is a translocated wild specimen or not… because that just opens up the need for a hundred plus other grey area states. I think we need one extra catch-all for situations that are neither truly wild nor truly captive/cultivated.

Also, keep in mind it is a “vote” not a setting. The system aggregates everyones position and comes up with a concensus…

1 Like

An example would be the klipspringer on Table Mountain. They are reintroduced to fill the niche reopened by removing the previously introduced Himalayan tahr.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/23701894

The tahr has a pink exclamation mark
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20208272

Seems marking those as wild (or leaving blank) plus the non native tag is fine for that case.

When were they reintroduced?

Between 1999 and 2003
https://fynbosandfeathers.com/2018/05/16/klipspringer-in-table-mountain-national-park/

The offspring of the introduced ones would be considered wild.

I’m not convinced making the captive/cultivated thing more complicated. This could also be handled in an Observation Field for those who are interested in it.

3 Likes