Are escapees "free" or "wild"?

General
1

Hi,

I know this has been discussed many times and I have tried to read as many posts as I could on this matter, but it is still somewhat confusing to me.

For this case, I am referring to an observation of an escaped butterfly. While on holiday with my family in Prague, we noticed an unusal looking butterfly flying around freely in a garden. It did not look like anything we were familiar with, so we took some pictures of it and then it flew away towards a forest nearby and we lost track of it.

In the evening while going through the pictures, I realised it was an African species and by doing a bit of research I found out that particular species was present at the time in a greenhouse nearby the place where we encountered it. It was a logical conclusion that the individual we saw was an escapee from the greenhouse, we did not see it escaping but it seemed like the most common sense assumption, so I have added this info to the observation. As this was clearly not captive at the time we took the pictures, I have voted accordingly and my family members who have also seen it also added similar votes:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/356648249

For me that seemed to be quite a straightforward choice, however in the meantime there have been several votes against, those users explained that not captive means “free” but not necessarily “wild” and the butterfly was brought over to Europe by people, it did not get there on its own…

All these are valid points, but still, marking a butterfly which was flying around freely as captive does not make that much sense to me… I also noticed that even if the species determination is correct, no one wants to add supporting IDs, probably to avoid this observation from becoming RG and getting exported to GBiF? If exporting escapees to GBiF is raising concerns, then I could edit the license of this observation to prevent it from getting sent to GBiF…

To be clear, I have no complaints whatsoever against the users who voted it captive, they have been very helpful in explaining their point of view and all discussions remained very polite, as you can see in the observation comments… but if these observations turn out to be problematic maybe it’s best to avoid posting escapees alltogether?

Thanks for any advice :slightly_smiling_face:

2

Лично я считаю, что если очевидно, что организм “сбежал из культуры” - то его следует помечать как “дикий”. Если это одна бабочка на весь город - будет восприниматься как шум. А вот если эту же бабочку будут наблюдать в разные года в этом городе - это уже повод задуматься, а не освоилась ли она?

3

The approach I typically follow (in my case with nonnative plants) is the following:

  • An observation of a non-native that has escaped directly from human cultivation/captivity is still marked Casual as it has not yet shown any ability to establish itself of its own accord
  • An organism that is, to varying levels of success, self-sustaining is not “captive / cultivated”

In your example I would lean on the side of it being “captive/cultivated” as it hasn’t yet shown any ability to survive the full range of Prague’s seasons and reproduce successfully

4

So far it’s the only observation of this species in Europe, so surely not established in any way, but as you can see, everyone seems to have a different opinion… considering the low temperatures in that area during that particular time (especially at night), I don’t think it survived for too long…

5

“Wild” on iNat =/= established or reproducing.

It merely indicates whether it was intentionally put in the particular place where it was found by humans or got there by its own initiative. Escapees are wild according to iNaturalist’s definition of wild.

Nevertheless, many users will mark escapees and hitchhikers as captive/cultivated because they believe that these observations distort range maps and provide misleading information about where the species occurs.

6

The iNaturalist rules state this clearly and specifically. Following these rules, this organism is considered wild ACCORDING TO THE PLATFORM’S RULES, whether someone likes it or not. I understand the community’s criticism, but we still have to follow the rules or ask for them to be adjusted.

I recently faced a case myself where a user decided to mark my observation of wild dog as captive. I attached an excerpt from the rules and asked the user what grounds they had for their opinion. However, the user chose to ignore my questions and did not withdraw their vote. This is strange.

Unfortunately, we have many stray dogs in our country.

7

So far I could never get any user to withdraw their vote and this is not the first time this is happenning to me. I also thought that the platform rules seem quite clear, but there are many who interpret them differently. Most of those users are very knowledgeable and they bring valuable contributions to the community, this is why I started doubting my own understanding of the matter as I am no scientist or specialist, just trying to follow the rules as best as I can… :slightly_smiling_face:

8

On other platforms there is a specific “Escaped” flag, and flagging an individual as Escaped does not make the observation (the iNat equivalent of) “Casual”, it can still get validated, but it prevents it from appearing on distribution maps and getting exported to GBiF.

9

I do see your point here and I understand your approach, but iNat is a platform for everyone and not all users may have the knowledge required to perform that kind of assessment. If a user with no special knowledge about butterflies goes to a park and takes a photo of a butterfly flying around freely, how do you convince him that it was a captive individual, without mentioning established populations, distribution maps and GBiF data? The platform’s rules should be kept simple and applicable to everyone, regardless of their scientific background.

10

It’s wild as it is essentially an escaped/released pet (from iNat’s guidelines about captive/wild:

https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169932-what-does-captive-cultivated-mean- )

If other users are intentionally voting against iNat’s guidance for using the DQA, you can flag the observation and explain the situation for curators to take a look at.

11

An observation of mine* had the same issue for me. It was observed outside of the butterfly sanctuary and had escaped but was marked captive.

These captive/cultivated observations for animals are pretty much black and white. With the exception of returning captive pets (dogs, cats, pigeons, etc), all animals observed outside of the enclosure that need human intervention to return to their place of captivity regardless if they can survive on their own or not must be marked wild. Yes, that means if an elephant is running down Times Square since it escaped from Central Park Zoo and cannot get back to Central Park on its own, then that would be marked wild unless it was accompanied by the zoo staff.

Obviously do not intentionally let butterflies escape from a butterfly garden to make them wild, but if they happen to escape incidentally and are not going to return, please photograph them and mark as wild with an explanation in the description.

Papilio demetrius from the butterfly farm aruba on February 21, 2023 by Robert Levy · iNaturalist was in the inside of the butterfly farm so it is properly marked captive.

Dryas iulia (Julia Heliconian) from The Butterfly Farm, Noord, Aruba, AW on February 21, 2023 at 11:35 AM by Robert Levy. Escaped from butterfly farm · iNaturalist is RG because it escaped from the butterfly farm. It almost certainly passed within a few days of observation.

*edited due to forum policy

12

I removed the first link in the post above as it called attention to a specific disagreement on iNaturalist. Posts on the forum shouldn’t call out behavior on linked iNat content.

13

In this particular case, I didn’t even know it was an escapee. I am not a butterfly specialist and yes, we thought it was a species we had never seen before, but we did not imagine it was an African escapee :grinning_face: There were other Papilio machaon at the same location and this is also is a Genus Papilio so we just thought it was a different species which was local, but new to us. Only in the evening when looking at the pictures on the laptop I found out it was really far away from home and also found out about the Annual exhibition of live tropical butterflies in the greenhouse nearby (which was a pity really because we never actually got to visit the greenhouse, that would have been very interesting!).

Luckily we had good pictures of this one as it was sitting in the sun for a couple of minutes :slightly_smiling_face:

14

That was my thought also, I thought it would be quite a clear cut choice… and then captive votes started coming in…

From past experience it’s always scientists or specialists/experts who seem to disagree with iNat’s definition of wild in some specific cases, like escapees, offspring of cultivated plants (descendants of plants that had been planted by humans), birds in public parks which are free to leave but won’t do so because people feed them (they benefit from human populations but are not actually raised or kept by humans)… these have been common pain points in my experience. So I usually try to stay away from them but on occasion there is a cool observation coming my way and I cannot resist the temptation, like it happened in this particular case. :slightly_smiling_face:

The thing is, people disagreeing with the wild status are really specialists and have great knowledge on those matters, their arguments are always very solid and I can see the logic. Discussions have always been polite and constructive, but none of those users has ever removed their captive vote so far. I did not want to flag the observations because I would not want those users to get in trouble because they do not respect iNat’s guidelines, they are also active identifiers and have helped lots of other users with their ID’s.

In the end there are always mixed feelings with these observations because it is frustrating to see all those disagreements on the wild status…

15

I mean, if your dog slipped its collar and you photographed it while it ran away would you now call it a “wild” or feral dog?

This is a rhetorical question since it sounds like what a lot of you are saying above. iNat’s guidelines are pretty weak and confusing, which is why this question comes up ad nauseum–personally I think they should at least reference the Jepson Manual guide for plants on what is a ‘Waif’ (wild escapee that doesn’t survive without human care or influence [intentional or not]) vs. ‘Naturalized’

>“Waif: Alien, adventive; reproducing neither sexually (e.g., by spores, seeds) nor vegetatively (e.g., by sprouts, suckers) in the absence of any benefit, intentional or not, direct or indirect, of human activity, and therefore not persisting beyond initial generation or establishment, or reproducing to some extent but not persisting for more than a few generations or well beyond initial establishment and therefore not completely naturalized; generally not considered to be part of the flora, but of interest because of their potential to become naturalized, and thereby to have become so. (see alien, naturalized)”

vs.

>“Naturalized: Alien (not native) and reproducing either sexually (e.g., by spores, seeds) or vegetatively (e.g., by sprouts, suckers) in the absence of any benefit, intentional or not, direct or indirect, of human activity, and thereby persisting beyond initial generation or establishment. (see native, waif)”

16

With this example I would assume the dog is trained to come back at some point? However, if I saw a loose dog in the middle of the woods that was missing for a week that would clearly be Inat wild right?

17

I’d mark it wild. I had a similar situation happen to me. I took a photo of a brilliantly yellow butterfly in a Delaware park. I couldn’t get a good photo, so it’s not identifiable to species. But, it is is clearly not native to Delaware. How it arrived in the park is is unknown. My theory is that someone had a wedding or another special event, and there was a release of butterflies, but I really do not know.

18

I’m not sure this merited another post on top of the one posted about a day ago regarding the same exact topic. I’ll try to summarize what I said in that thread.

Captive/cultivated are for things that humans have had direct impact in either installation, or containment. Anything non-native, in a place it wasn’t intended to be is wild. Certainly there are plenty of philosophical and semantic debates to have on the terms.

This is ostensibly a website of learned, and intellectual persons. It is in my experience a lot like a room full of PhDs. Willing to argue about the most minute detail as if its impacts have life and death consequences.

Often lost behind the passion, is the reason. I feel like this is exactly the case. What is the reason to delineate ‘wild’ and ‘free’? Do you think such a dichotomy would be useful in the broader scheme?

I am vehemently against adding another dimension like ‘free’. You have no idea what the impact of an escapee has. You cannot be 100% it won’t impact something, somehow.

I mean. I think iNaturalist assumes most people aren’t going to act facetiously. Also, the question comes up often because people post before searching. If you’ve ever existed on any sort of tech support forum, you know this. As I said above, people will argue for the most minute details.

19

Sorry, I did not see the post you are referring to, it did not turn up in my searches, but thanks for your feedback, it’s appreciated :slightly_smiling_face:

20

You may have only searched in this forum! Often topics like this end up in ‘feature requests’!

Here is the thread in question. I apologize it was a little over a week ago that it was posted. But as you can see, it is still very active. Including myself!