Any way to hide trophy hunting observations

General
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To give you some context, I came across photos posted by a user I won’t name. This person takes photos of hunting trophies, such as a Nevada fox (a protected species, by the way), holding it by its hind legs in a selfie with a big smile. They didn’t tag/annotate it as “Dead” so we could filter it out, nor did they provide any context. They just posted the photo, said it was a fox, and that’s all we know. One user even claimed it was a “good kill,” while another, like me, was concerned that the species is vulnerable and protected in Nevada.

My main problem is that we can’t even filter out these kinds of “observations” (if you can call them that…). People who post these kinds of images don’t even take the time to annotate them as dead. And even if they were annotated as such, there are a huge number of observations of animals that have died NATURALLY that contribute to science, and I would like to be able to focus on these genuine observations without having to worry about coming across an image that will keep me awake at night and make me feel nauseous, posted by someone who is proud of their deliberate actions against a living being.

This isn’t even a debate about hunting, it’s just a matter of common sense. Not everyone wants to see that. It’s not natural. We also don’t need the proud and smiling hunter holding the carcass like a trash bag or a trophy for “science.”

The minimum requirement would be to take a decent photo for scientific observation purposes.

Furthermore, the Community Guidelines state: “Images of dead or dismembered animals. While we do not endorse killing or fatally injuring animals just for the sake of contributing to iNaturalist, […]”, https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/community+guidelines
This means that normally, killing a living being for the purpose of posting it on iNaturalist should be prohibited. But when we report these kinds of images, we are told that they are not inappropriate.

As a wildlife photographer who is very close to the environment, this saddens me. Solutions should be put in place.

EDIT BECAUSE THE THREAD WAS CLOSED.

Closing the thread only 2 hours after I posted it does not solve the problem and is a complete violation of freedom of expression! I am outraged by how my forum post was handled. Between the condescending people who respond off-topic and the immediate closure of the thread in question without any real solution or discussion, I find this shameful.

People are turning away from the problem because it’s easier than actually taking action. This is the hunting lobby in all its glory.

Filtering is not enough, as it will not prevent other users from posting new trophy hunting photos, so no, it will not stop us from seeing them. So yes, I think I will always have insomnia and nausea when I come across these kinds of photos, which are also prohibited by the Community Guidelines. It’s mind-boggling.

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You may want to join this project

Alive Animals

Because as of October 17th, 2022, iNaturalist does not offer any way to filter out observations of dead animals, which upset many people. There’s no way to set the normal explore tab to filter out observations of dead things, so…this is the best I could think of.

(That is the copy from the project, not my words.)

Hunting and fishing are acceptable practices in our world.

There have been discussions on this, see related discussions below.

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No, my issue is not dead animals in general, but trophy hunting, for pleasure and the purpose of putting them on INat (killing an animal just for INat is prohibited in the community guidelines), especially without any context and annotation.
The filtering is badly handled.

”Hunting and fishing are acceptable practices in our world.”
As a wildlife photographer, I disagree, hunting for fun shouldn’t be acceptable, and there should be at least an option to filter them out

The “related” discussions are closed, and most of them are about gore photos, not trophy hunting

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Any topic can be reopened by asking a moderator to do so.

Your question is ‘any way to hide trophy hunting observations’”

The answer is no.

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It’s not only a “question”, it’s a discussion about the fact that this should change. If many other people are asking, I’m not a lone case and this means that there is definitely an issue with that.

  • There is also a lot of context in my post, also by the fact that a vulnerable and protected specie was hunted.

And also the fact that INat is not following their own community guidelines as it isn’t allowed in the lines but, well, it in fact is…

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Is it true that people are doing that?

Is that really true?

Do you have any proof that they have made the decision to hunt an animal just to post it here?

If there has been a legal hunting violation you can and should report it to the proper authorities. It can’t be handled on or by iNat.

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Just use common sense. Killing an animal is still a deliberate, voluntary, and thoughtful act. It’s not a natural death that you might encounter on a walk.
You don’t kill an animal, take a selfie, and proudly post it once it’s dead without even taking the time to take a decent photo that shows some respect for the animal, without any reason behind it.

If INaturalist cannot take action or even enforce its own rules, then it becomes a danger to nature, encouraging users to harm it without any sanctions or rules.
What can we do when we don’t even live in the country in question? Should it be up to us, the users who come across these images without even meaning to, to take action? Surely INat should have some responsibility.

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I am using common sense, honestly do not like care to have you imply otherwise.

iNaturalist is not encouraging killing in any form.

iNaturalist has no authority to do anything about illegal activities such as hunting violations ,or the destruction or theft of plants that are posted.

This is your judgement of another user’s experience. You are assuming the pride in killing as killing and never considered any other reason. You are assuming posting it was the only intent?

Was it a selfie or was there another person there that has little photography skill?

Are observers supposed to give reason on why they post observations of everything or only certain observations? “I posted this dead fish I caught for fun?” “ I posted these mushroom photos showing I proudly destroyed the mushroom to observe the structure of it”

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It’s really easy to do nothing.
How can we trust INaturalist if they don’t enforce and follow their own community rules and if there is no moderation?
This opens the door to encouraging poaching, intensive hunting, and species trafficking in this case. It contributes to the destruction of the environment. Inaction is contributing to it.

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This is going in a loop already.Thunderhead already explained correctly (or asked:)
Is there proof that the animal was hunted only to be shown on iNat? The answer: “its common sense” is not really saying anything.

100% what he said.

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Then it’s already been done, iNaturalist has been in operation long enough that the immoral people will be doing immoral activities anyway. You would be seeing massive corruption and damage from it.

That’s not the reality of it though, is it?

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If it can’t be “proven,” why does INaturalist include it in its rules? Because in that case, it’s completely useless, and INaturalist cannot be trusted.

It’s clear that you are just pro-hunting people who consider this normal, and that it would be a shame to no longer be able to post such photos since it’s clear that the animal is deliberately killed by humans and then posted on INaturalist with a big smile and no respect whatsoever.

In any case, that’s not even the issue. You’re going off topic to avoid facing the real problem that these kinds of photos pose. Please reread my post. It’s not even a debate. It’s a discussion about filtering and moderation.

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On what basis can you claim that iNaturalist does not contribute to this kind of immoral activity? You ask me for proof? Then I ask you for proof.

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@foxanature welcome to the forum. The question posed in your title has been answered: no, there is no way to filter out only trophy hunting-related observations. If there are certain users you are consistently seeing posting such photos, you can add an exclusion filter to your search URLs so you won’t see their records at all; see https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-use-inaturalists-search-urls-wiki-part-1-of-2/63 for how to do this.

I would suggest reaching out to staff via help@inaturalist.org if you are concerned and want to discuss this matter further.

Given the nature of this topic I’m going to go ahead and close this thread to avoid any further escalation of the exchanges and someone potentially saying something they may regret later.

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