For some reason, I had remembered iNat automatically obscured the location and date of critically endangered organisms. Was that wrong? Do I mis-remember the policy?
I recently observed a critically endangered organism, but when I looked at the record a couple of days later, it was set to Open, not Obscured. Of course, I then set it to Obscured, but what is the actual practice when such records are uploaded?
Taxon geoprivacy: Taxa on iNaturalist can have multiple conservation statuses. A conservation status can be global or associated with a particular place. These conservation statuses help explain threats associated with a species. If the threats include pressures that are increased from location disclosure, the conservation status may include a geoprivacy setting of âobscuredâ or in rare cases "private". This will automatically apply this geoprivacy setting to all observations of that taxon globally or in the place specified by the conservation status.
The iNaturalist community helps inform which taxa should have a taxon geoprivacy set by flagging taxa. iNaturalist curators and specific collaborating conservation organizations help respond to these flags, moderate discussions, and maintain taxon geoprivacy settings.
from https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169938-what-is-geoprivacy-what-does-it-mean-for-an-observation-to-be-obscured- (bolding mine)
I believe it depends on whether the organism is considered vulnerable to poaching or harassment if the location is known. Some species are critically endangered due to, for example, habitat loss, but not hunting, collecting, or harassment by sightseers. Of course this can change region to region, and you should obviously obscure anything that you, personally, feel could be at risk from itâs location being posted.
Thank you. This was a very choice (edible), very over collected organism, and labeled CR. I am surprised it was not auto obscured. I honestly am surprised it survived so long in its location.
How would I alert a curator over this incident? It is a very vulnerable animal, subject to over collection, in a fixed location.
Of course I could be wrong, Iâm always learning. I do believe that when you look at your own endangered species observation it shows the found location, but when someone else looks at it then it is obscured. I have experienced this with my own observations.
You can always see a taxonâs geoprivacy in the Status tab of its taxon page: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/56652-Haliotis-rufescens#status-tab Your red abalone observation is obscured, but as @eshort76 said, you will see the actual location of your own observation when you look at it. Even then you should see a label that says âobscuredâ below the map.
If a taxon is not set to be obscured automatically and you think it should be, you can go to the taxon page and click curation then flag for curation
I checked the geoprivacy status when I saw the dot in m Obs map. Normally, Obscured observations show as faded dots spread away from the actual site, but not for this guy. It was set to Open and its location clearly marked. Itâs not a species that moves (much) and is highly vulnerable to collection.
There is already even a flag for this instance you could look at and comment on.
But, normally my obscured observations show as a faded dot and when I check the status, it says Obscured, rather than Open. In this case, it showed as a solid dot and the status said it was Open. I assume anyone could have seen it? No?
Oh, so am I correct in thinking that nothing was done for this species in 4 years since you originally flagged it?
Ps⌠even though Iâve Obscured it now , Iâm sorry I labeled it in this discussion and I edited my post to not name the species. I wonder if you would please consider removing the name from the quoted part of your post?
This is how auto-obscured observations appear.
(PS exact location of this obs isnât actually that sensitive, but youâd want to hide the map/GPS in truly sensitive situations if you want to share a screenshot of what youâre seeing)
for your observation in question, your initial ID was only to genus, so it would have shown as open. It wasnât until a second person came along and added an ID to species that it was obscured. Your record is definitely obscured (independent of you manually obscuring it yourself)
you can check this by clicking âdetailsâ under the map, and it states that the record is being auto-obscured:
Thatâs what I did, I checked the details ~after~ it got the ID and it was listed as Open. So I set it to Obscured. But, it matters a little less now. I deleted the record; it seems for the best really.
It matters quite a bit more actually if after reviewing everything weâve shared you are sure it was truly indicated with open geoprivacy but should have been obscured. You should attempt to replicate the issue and report that to the iNat staff as it would be a serious lapse in geoprivacy.
Agree completely with bouteloua. Iâm a little skeptical that it ever truly had an open location at species level, there are thousands of observations of the taxa you mentioned on iNat, and they all display as obscured to me. Some parts of the site display your own obscured observations like all other obscured observations (faded dot, offset location), some parts of the site show you the exact location of your own observation, which I think might have led to some confusion. That being said if it really did have open geoprivacy that would be a huge issue and I really think you shouldnât delete the observation in such a case.
Well, I deleted this one also. (It was several years old and not alive), but GeoPrivacy was shown as Open, and not Obscured.
Yes, that reflects what you have chosen for the observation. Not the geoprivacy the system has applied to the observation.
