Hi, I’m aware there are past forums about this topic but haven’t exactly found an answer for myself. I wondered if it was generally frowned upon to post animals from a zoo, but of course, mark them as casual grade? I get people do this since it’s not against the rules, but say I was practicing photography and didn’t exactly have anywhere to post it, would people be upset if it were posted here instead? I get iNat is more on ‘research grade’ so I’m not sure how people would treat this since they’re zoo animals. (Specifically however, I am more wanting to post California Condor photos from SB Zoo, not really any others)
I’m mainly just concerned about reactions from people, not anything about rules or whatnot. Thanks!
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Casual observations (like of animals from zoos) are allowed but aren’t the main focus of the site. People wouldn’t get upset if you posted zoo animals but I would recommend looking for wild organisms instead
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No one would be upset, but they probably wouldn’t find your observations interesting either. If you just want to upload them for your personal records, it’s not a problem.
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Thank you! :) I’ll only post one collective observation since I think the interactions of the animals were interesting, and don’t plan for my primary focus on iNat being captive animals/don’t plan to post more zoo content in general. I’ve seen and posted them in the wild before too so it’s not any new species to my record.
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A potential benefit of casual observations of captive animals, such as those at zoos, is that they might provide high-quality template images for computer identification of photos of animals in the wild.
But I agree that, while technically allowed, they aren’t the main focus of this site.
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There are some species… I’m thinking specifically of sawfish (Pristidae) as examples… so rarely encountered in the wild, that captive/casual observations (from aquaria in this case) might be of interest. No?
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Observations should only be of a single individual/species. I recommend separating the photos into multiple observations
This would be an example of where posting a casual observation could be useful. Still, not the main focus of iNat, but it’s generally more acceptable to post casual observations if they are of a taxon of interest
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But for this exception - I would also go with one obs - for the flock in the enclosure. (The obs is for John, third left?)
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If you don’t have a place to post, you can always get an Unsplash or Flickr account and put the photos there.
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You can certainly post them, as long as they are marked casual.
Some people use iNat to document their gardens, and post observations of cultivated plants, and like zoo animals these become Casual not Research Grade, and that is widely considered acceptable.
To reach other photographers, you could use Flickr, which is primarily a photography site. An account is free for up to 1000 photos. There are many photographers on it who specialize in animals. You could connect with some of them, and find a community there.
https://www.flickr.com/photos
And do stay on iNat, too! Sometimes in Forum topics people give excellent photography tips.
These Forum topics have some great photos:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-is-your-favorite-lifer-from-this-week/24219
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/best-photos-youve-uploaded-on-inat/45317
There’s no requirement that your observation has to be Research Grade to share with us there!
And finally, this topic is where we courageously share our worst photos:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/whats-the-worst-pic-you-uploaded-to-inat/40286
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Apparently some people don’t like them, as I’ve seen one recent comment saying “This sort of thing doesn’t belong on iNat” on an observation of a zoo animal. But some people just go through their lives looking for reasons to complain. I’m fine with zoo posts as long as someone clicks “No” on the “This organism is wild” line.
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After reading through these posts I don’t really have anything useful to offer to the discussion but it made me think it would be great to have an iNatZoo or iNatBotanicGarden “spin-off” of this site for children or school groups/ college courses to use. Zoos and BGs could use it to monitor there populations and children/ adults could engage and learn about wildlife and native flora conservation. My absolute favorite field trip in high school was going to Sea World in San Diego, CA and filling out a classification/taxonomy worksheet.
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There is Seek - which is intended for children to use.
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