Am I the only iNatter that is pulled over on a bike almost every month?

Oh.

My bad…

(200+ species have been collected by me from city parks in Oregon, Washington, and Nevada, oh well. Abit late to put 'em back now, unless I ask OSU for them back…)

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Thank you for posting these, very helpful.

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That happened to me a couple times in when I was volunteering on the NYBG Metroflora project: twice there were messages on my answering machine when I got home wondering if I was aware that my car was such and such a place, and once when I was greeted, by my name, by a slowly cruising police car as I walked along the edge of a woods bordering an office park parking lot.
My favorite was when a cop came up to me and said they’d had a report of a student playing hooky; he was laughing by the time he got up to me since I’d been out of school for a good 25 years by that time. I always asked them if they knew of any places I could use for inventorying the woody plants; got a couple good suggestions so it worked out.

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This brings up what I would consider an alternate strategy for repeated encounters: become a “Regular” in the environment where the officials will notice you. If they get used to seeing “oh that person on the bike with the net,” not only might they be less likely to chase you off, they might eventually watch out on your behalf in different ways.

It means going to the same place a lot and doing similar things; and probably waving to the ones you recognize or saying “hey there”; or being ready to whip out your field guide with the special pages bookmarked, to show them what you want to find. It’s sort of like the opposite of making their eyes glaze over- instead, let them focus on you doing your totally “normalized” activity.

It’s a lot of work if you’re an introvert though.

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Well, that may be interesting on my part. Oh yeah. I didn’t mention this on my profile, but Iḿ an introvert, and don’t really like doing a lot of things with people that I hardly know. Or Iĺl get really hyped about doing something, but when the hance is presented, I will back off.
But that is a good idea, I should try that.

By the way, I got talked to again, this time I was with a friend, and we were chasing after a bunch of C.oregona that were trying to escape us by flight. After telling us that we weren’t allowed to do that, he asked if we were the same two kids that were here last month running around trying to kill all of the animals here. (Last month, this same officer came up to us and started yelling at us because we were¨taking drugs.¨ IN reality we were collecting B.discolor and were using old film canisters to contain them. We´re beginning to think he has something against us.)

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I’ve found it helps to wear gear from the university I’m affiliated with. Then people tend to ask questions about my research. This may not help if you don’t attend or work at a university.

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Yeah, definitely won’t help me much for seven or eight more years, but I´ll keep that one in mind, thanks!
Welcome to iNatForum @lkerwien!

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Not an entomologist, but when I’m out doing “roadside botany” I’ve found that wearing a high visibility safety vest deters most random people from bothering me. I think the vest makes you look like you’re supposed to be there doing a job of some sort.

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Maybe I should change the name of this topic to “Am I the only iNat Naturalist that is pulled over on a bike almost every month?”

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“iNat Naturalist”? Why not just iNatter?

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I don’t think I’ve ever used that term before, I probably didn’t use it because I’m not used to saying it.

Interesting, it’s in quite common usage on the Forum. It just means… well, iNatter! Someone who iNats.

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The officer in question only knew my name because he’d run a check on my license plate; that time was kind of my own fault because I left the car in the driveway of an electric substation. He was pleasant about it; didn’t even make me go back and move the car; but it’s a little unnerving when ‘official’ strangers know who you are.

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Well, that brings it close enough to my mildly traumatic upsetting experience to share it here…while remaining profoundly conscious of the insignificance of my experience in comparison to the very real and lifelong trauma experienced by hundreds in relation to the horrific event that preceded it.

A few days after the worst hate massacre in our small country’s history, I kitted myself out in the gear I had assembled for my first visit to my brand new semi-funded project, on public land across the road from a school that also hosts a community English language school.

Rubber boots, tool belt with two compact cameras in standard camera pouches, and a couple of other small pouches, and a tally counter…well, four tally counters…small round metal cylinders velcroed to a short strap, for convenience.

I parked my car near the public entrance to the Reserve, then headed straight into the trees beside my car.

My phone rang. A friendly female policewoman checked my identity, having obtained it and mobile number from car registration database.

In answer to my stunned enquiry, she gently told me someone had called the Police to report a suspicious person.

After telling her that not only was I a 45kg female senior citizen with spinal problems and muscle weakness, I added for reassurance to her anxious informant that the most dangerous thing I had on me was a pair of secateurs, (to which she chuckled). Then I asked what item of my clothing or kit had caused the alarm. Apparently it was the row of shiny tally counters hanging from my belt.

I was too scared to go far that day, kept fighting off waves of vague guilt and fear of being swooped on (pure imagination), and for several weeks always evaluated what I was wearing and carrying in terms of possible misinterpretation.

I have never worn the tallycounters in public sight again.

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I do sometimes wear construction/safety type gear, and happen to have a safety light on my dash (amber/white, I use it for work), which can help being parked in odd places. But yeah, as a white woman in the US, I can confirm I’m not bothered much (definite privelege). More of the “are you okay?” than “what are you doing?” type interactions

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I was in the laneway of a farmers field releasing a mouse I had caught in a live trap, when a police car with flashing lights pulled up. I realized that there had been recent discoveries in my area of marijuana grows in fields, and I was standing in one of those fields at night wearing my Eeyore PJ’s. I think the only reason he believed me was because I still had the mouse.
That is the only wildlife related police enquiry I have had. I do get curious people asking what I am doing, but they are interested. Many of them are regular walkers in the areas I go to, and they enjoy being helpful by telling me where they have seen butterflies. It is the dogs that I find a problem. Seeing humans acting odd can cause some of them to overreact to you.

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A common theme for these various anecdotes in this thread: you might be doing nothing wrong in your various nature-oriented field activities, but you need to be conscious of what others who don’t know what you’re doing might think. I’ve gotten a little more paranoid over the years and don’t take for granted that other people will automatically know that I’m just a field biologist and not doing anything threatening. In fact, there are landowners who might know exactly what you’re doing and don’t want you potentially finding endangered species on or near their land. Just be careful out there.

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Wow.

That is probably the most specific yet uninviting sign I have ever seen in my life. Kinda scary, though.

What do you think those larger holes are from?

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From someone with a different opinion.

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Ah, I see.

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