Biggest peeve among naturalist

[scharf]

@fffffffff

I saw a couple with a boy who caught a toad, put it in a jar and started throwing around, I asked them to stop it and they said it’s just a toad, how would you call that?

On a scale from ignorant to malicious:
uninformed, immature, selfish, self-centred, callous, cruel, heartless, sadistic

[birdwhisperer]

@fffffffff

Holding things you shouldn’t touch, and especially doing it wrong, painful way for an animal.

I happened to be scrolling thru some observations looking for something to identify and I found a guy holding a garter snake by its neck! And it’s not the first time I’ve seen it either. I’m okay if you hold the hand firmly on a snake (especially if it is striking or it’s venomous) but please, do NOT let the body dangle!

[whaichi]

@octobertraveler

I guess I just feel a little out of my depth, but I often do have a good sense of what I’m observing, even if not at the species level (so many hours spent on iNat & elsewhere . . .). I’ll try to get over my nervousness and give it a shot next time, though I think I’ll wait until it’s not something decomposing. ;) Who knows, maybe I can recruit another iNatter.

Sounds great! One thing that helps - at least for me - is remembering that I’m often comparing my identification skills to taxon experts on iNaturalist while the average person coming up to ask what I’m photographing might be happy to learn about something at the family level. And for every new person you talk to now, that’s probably one less person who will think you’ve lost something the next time you cross paths. ;)

[octobertraveler]

Good points–you’ve talked me into trying at any rate. :)

[molanic]

My biggest pet peeve I think is the people that are obviously naturalists, but won’t try iNaturalist! There are so many people that have an interest in nature watching and take good photos, but limit themselves to posting them on Facebook, Instagram, or gardening forums to ask for identification help. I suggest iNat A LOT. I tell them how easy it is to use, how they’ll have a much bigger group of knowledgeable people to help them identify things, and how they’ll be contributing to citizen science. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ve recruited any new users yet.

Minor pet peeves that I don’t think anyone mentioned. Some may just be users unfamiliar with the platform (often students with class projects). Unfortunately it can be hard to nudge them in the right direction, when they don’t respond to comments for whatever reason.

• Uploading tons of photos of the same thing as multiple observations. Often seen with photo dumps from camera traps. If a deer triggered the camera 25 times in the span of five minutes, they all don’t need to be separate observations.

• Adding older photos and photos of pinned insect specimens with an obviously very wrong date and location.

• Using the site just for adding trophy photos of hunted animals. I really don’t need to see your smiling face holding up the head of the deer you just shot, or the truck full of squirrel and coyote bodies. I see the scientific value in posting dead animals when it is road-kill, window strikes, or predator remains. I’m not squeamish about it or anything, and am totally fine with respectful legal hunting in general. There’s just something about a “trophy photo” of a hunter smiling with their kill that bothers me, especially when there are a bunch of them being posted all at once and that is all a user is posting.

[cmcheatle]

@molanic

Uploading tons of photos of the same thing as multiple observations. Often seen with photo dumps from camera traps. If a deer triggered the camera 25 times in the span of five minutes, they all don’t need to be separate observations

Actually according to inaturalist rules that is exactly what you have to do as by rule every observation is for a single individual at a single point in time and single place. Unless you are absolutely positive the deer are all the same individual. Otherwise if there is any chance they are different individuals then separate records are required (or simply don’t post it at all)

Which is my biggest pet peeve about iNaturalist, not naturalists.

[fffffffff]

I agree with multiple observations of the same object at the same time done by a person who leaves the website after that or after a couple more obs. It’s ok when newbies do mistakes, but it’s frustrating when you can’t delete 4 additional observations of the exact same moose done at the same minute and the author will probably never get back.

[mamestraconfigurata]

Thanks for that. I haven’t held a garter snake in 40 years, but I did not know that. I WILL remember it!

[tiwane]

@birdwhisperer

I happened to be scrolling thru some observations looking for something to identify and I found a guy holding a garter snake by its neck!

I did herp outreach for about six years. These kind of instances can be frustrating, but I think they’re a good opening for a teachable moment. Write a civil comment about the best way to hold a snake and you’ll hopefully stop that person from doing it in the future.

---

I would agree with @arboretum_amy that this topic isn’t a good fit for the iNat Forum. Discussion about a problem (iNat-related or not) should be focused on at least exploring the problem, or even better, how to alleviate or at least mitigate the problem.

Nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around (I believe that’s from Calvin and Hobbes?) and a mass airing of grievances makes for a pretty unpleasant discussion. At least that’s my impression after reading through it today.

[dianastuder]

I do have some overlap between Facebook groups and iNat.
People who really want an ID, will come and explore iNat.

[jnstuart]

But tis the season (Festivus) for Airing of Grievances.

I think if folks can indicate what gripes them about things related to nature study or iNat, it lets us know what we as individuals might be doing that we can rectify. I recognized a few bad habits of my own from this thread. Will make some new year’s resolutions about those.

[sgene]

@jnstuart

Festivus)

Thanks for the reminder! I would have missed it.

[sedgequeen]

That’s why I have a document “iNaturalist responses” where I accumulate standard explanations. I copy and paste into observations where I change names. Of course, even that can get tiring when I make a lot of changes.

[nightjar]

I feel sad when I see pulled-up mushrooms on the trails (as well as on this site) - as I do, very frequently. The argument that it’s analogous to “picking fruit from a tree” doesn’t address the fact that the beauty of a fruiting is being spoiled for everyone else. (A corollary: the obsession with “is it medicinal” / how-can-I-use-this. Ravaging a fruiting of, eg, T. versicolor, and drinking the “tea” from steeping it in hot water will not cure your cancer.)

[cmcheatle]

@nightjar

I feel sad when I see pulled-up mushrooms on the trails (as well as on this site)

My personal solution to this is if there is only 1 individual, I will leave it as is even if it means not documenting the underside, reducing ID chances etc. If there is more than 1 present, then I will consider pulling one.

[nightjar]

Pulling one from a group is ok, I think, as long as it isn’t too conspicuous. I’ve done it - spore prints, etc. I guess I’m reacting to what I see all too often, which is pulling all. And I don’t necessarily assume that it’s the iNat community that’s responsible for this - so my “peeve” may be somewhat misplaced here :-)

[silversea_starsong]

Hold your pitchforks, but one of my pet peeves is over-observing the same species. It’s not really a problem, most of the time, data-wise, so my concern is quite personally biased. I just don’t like the same individual being posted every day, or multiple times a day, or every individual in a small area being posted separately.

[silversea_starsong]

As much as I agree I would be a hypocrit for doing so–I have contributed to this damage, especially when IDs have had to be made from detaching parts of the plant or mushroom. It’s not that I don’t have a conscience, because it doesn’t really make me feel good, same with collecting insects for taxonomy revisions. But I guess I believe at least some damage has to be done occasionally in order to further our knowledge. Like, until we have 3D scanners and such, it’s inevitable…

Then there are people who collect an entire flying season of butterlies in one day to pin them all. I feel like I’m the least of the concerns.

[er1kksen]

Just want to note regarding annoyance when you see obvs of pulled mushrooms because the observer failed to leave them for others to enjoy- careful in assuming that they’ve ruined anyone’s enjoyment. I always pull mushrooms to get a gill shot, because the mushroom people of iNat scolded me for not providing gill shots, but 99% of the mushrooms I observe would never have been seen by anyone else anyways. I’m sure that’s true of any other inatters who for whatever reason do most or all of their observing in places that normally go years without foot traffic. The considerations involved are definitely different in different places.