I had a guy insist I looked sad once and then proceed to try to engage me in conversation, which I paid no attention to, because all I kept thinking, was, “Dude, my butterfly is getting away!”
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I was doing a bird survey on a wildlife refuge and had a research permit to broadcast bird calls for the survey. A lady comes up to me during the survey, and I had already started the broadcast, so there was no way to pause the 12-mintute survey (once we broadcast, another survey cannot be done at the location for at least 10 days). I quickly say that I’m in the middle of survey and ask her to please be quiet. She starts talking at me (not suspicious of me, just trying to start a conversation), and glares at the broadcaster every time it interrupts her. She ultimately gives up because I’m not saying anything. I hear her mutter “how rude” as she leaves… Needless to say, I could not have heard a single bird for 10 out of the 12 minutes and had to redo the survey after 10 days.
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OK, that’s worse! I guess there should be a separate thread about people who are not suspicious of observers/researchers but want attention from them no matter what is happening. :)
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Sadly, in my experience the kind of men who pester lone females are also the ones who don’t care if you’re wearing a wedding ring or not.
I’ve had better success wearing an orange safety vest as a general human-repellant - it’s completely unflattering, the color doesn’t look good on anybody, and it makes you look potentially “official” enough most people don’t want to talk to you anyway. At least it works here in California, I don’t know if it has a similar effect in Germany.
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Generally, yes, I would agree. But this isn’t the ordinary “hitting on a woman” I am accustomed to and know how to respond to. In the type of encounters I’ve been having it’s invariably been migrant men who, if I don’t manage to cut off the conversation before it starts, quite quickly ask how old I am and whether I am married; if I do not have the presence of mind to lie and say “yes”, it turns to why not, everybody should be married, and some comment about how they need a wife. I even had one insisting that he would cook and clean and keep house for me.
Maybe these men would just change their tactic if they saw a wedding ring, but my sense is that something slightly different is going on here. It doesn’t feel like they are pestering a woman because she is alone and vulnerable, but a more responding to a cultural expectation in which being alone is not a normal state of affairs and thus needs to be fixed. My hope is that a married woman might be seen as less approachable in such a context.
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I think these may be attempts to legalize their immigration status and it has been going on for decades. Ever watched the movie Green Card? I remember my student days in a big German city riding the train and bus a lot as a young female to get to classes and such. I would frequently get marriage proposals out of the blue from (usually well-dressed and very polite) young men of African origin who happened to be riding the same train or bus as me. They were pretty much all looking for a shortcut to permanent residency through marriage to a citizen. These encounters stopped in an instant when I moved to America and became the Green Card holder myself (job related, not through marriage).
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I was photographing shorebirds in Malibu when I spotted an orange-crowned warbler in some plants in front of a home. I went up to the fence with my zoom lens and started looking around and shooting the bird as it moved.
I noticed a man in the yard looking very concerned. I asked him if he was the owner and he said yes and then asked me pointedly what I was photographing. I pointed at his beautiful plants and noted that they attract birds. His whole manner changed as he asked me about the types of birds and told me how much he loves his plants.
Right about then I realized why he looked familiar… he was a well-known actor who had appeared in major movies and TV shows. He must’ve thought I was paparazzi at first! But my big khaki hat and binoculars probably made it easier to believe I was just a naturalist.
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I would also note that a ring (which others can assume to be a wedding ring…the responsibility for that assumption lies with them!), can be advantageous as a male as well. As a male who has some suspicion generating phenotypes (long hair, facial hair, scruffy dress), I have seen a difference in how I am regarded while wearing a (real) wedding ring. I seem to be perceived as less of a threat and safer to talk to when wearing it. I actually often take my ring off when in the field, so I have a decent comparison set of observations/experiences. I was a bit surprised at the difference it makes, and I now have some of those silicon rings I wear in the field (when I remember at least). So wearing a ring could conceivably be of use to folks of different genders.
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I personally wouldn’t consider a T-Rex in sunglasses safe just because he was wearing a wedding ring.
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please!! we need to know who is this kind and mystery celebrity!! :)
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My childhood (in the 70’s) was in the suburbs of Washington DC, and even there, my brothers and friends and I could go and explore pretty much wherever we could get to on our bikes. I lived next to a reasonable sized park, and a good chunk of my pre-high-school childhood was spent roaming through that forest, splashing through the creeks, exploring neighborhoods far from where we lived. As long as we showed up for dinner, there was no concern about where we were all day.
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I had a gun pulled on me while doing a Christmas Bird Count in my Prius. There’s nothing you can do sometimes.
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for the record I was wearing glasses and my wedding ring as well
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and an iNat T shirt, hat …
Wow, that’s pretty extreme. A good reminder that there are some folks out there that really are somewhat dangerous, although I’m glad to know you seem to have come through that experience unscathed… maybe a little PTSD?
I usually drag my kid and husband along, so it gets easier when I appear to be showing some things to my family. When I’m alone I tend to act like an overexcited goof, so people probably decide it’s better to let me be. In the past I was a bit into street photography, and noticed people leave me alone if I act slightly unhinged - super broad smile, over-the-top excitement about the things I’m seeing, the works :D
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We can request bug fixes and new features. Can we request new merchandise?
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Yes, we can suggest merch!
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/i-would-like-an-inat-hat/1186/217
Though I didn’t see any car magnet options in iNat’s current merch partner.
But many sites do have customizable ones you can order, so for funsies I made a mockup:
Ideally, the text line would be larger, and would be set by iNat.
Even more ideally…available in multiple languages (perhaps in a future release).
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I would never harass someone with a net, or someone collecting specimens, however… naturalists have a bad rep (and lots of bad stories to back it up) for studying life by killing things. I regard them with the same distaste as the people who poison themselves and everyone in their house to get rid of some insects that could be eliminated by not leaving food or crumbs out on their counter.
Recently a course was offered locally to create master bee people (with a more scientific name of course) similar to master gardeners and master recyclers. I called to find out if bee killing was required and if so, exactly how many bees would need to be killed. The person I spoke to said, “Not very many. About 100.”
I’m not making judgements about those who do that. Yes, it is necessary in some instances. I just don’t want to participate and I don’t want to be around when you are doing it.
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I can see this being a good analogy for “tree canopy sampling” or even insect bucket traps that are indiscriminate and kill everything. I think collecting by the vast majority of people is not that destructive. In my case it’s a single specimen for the voucher but 99% of everything else is left alive. The ethics of trap collecting can be debated but in some cases it is done by people who have to cover a lot of ground on surveys or bioblitzes, and it’s more of a necessary evil for that moment. It’s not the greatest thing to show the public at such events as piles of dead moths are going to waste as probably <1% will be going to a museum. Luckily those events are just one day’s worth of sampling.
I don’t have respect for anyone collecting insect for sale or profit, or who collect dozens of specimens from one spot. This is not ethical.
As far as “studying by killing things”, this is a blunt way of saying it as it is absolutely necessary to collect an insect to do taxonomy. Whether you need DNA or genitalia, you still need a voucher specimen even in 2023. Photos are supplementary for variation or life appearance which often fades in collections. We do not enjoy doing this but recognize that is must be done but done ethically and humanely.
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