Confusion on taxon geoprivacy and downloaded lat and long

General
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1

I have a collection project for river otter in Colorado. North American River Otter are vulnerable so iNat has taxon_geoprivacy=obscured. However, I have "Allow members to trust this project with hidden coordinates" checked for this project. When I download the data there are coordinates in the Latitude and Longitude fields, except for one observation, which has data in the private_latitude and private_logitude fields and geoprivacy=private.

Because in the downloaded data, taxon_geoprivacy=obscured and coordinates_obscured=TRUE, does that mean every one of the locations is in fact obscured?

We were hoping this information could help our state with some distribution data, but I’m unsure the best way to get the unobscured data without reaching out to each individual who submitted, many of whom I think do not regularly check their iNat account…

Thanks

2

Allow does not mean compel, the user still gets to decide when they join the project.

3

Welcome to the forum, @cat-adams!

Have you read through this thread? https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/pros-and-cons-of-inat-regional-partnerships-the-calbiodex-test-project/

4

I had not! Very cool and interesting. I wonder if iNat would be interested in expanding beyond California, though my particular needs currently don’t extend to all iNat data in Colorado. But our agency is really leaning towards using iNat as a way to engage the public in community science without having to create any more “apps” or tech to try and convince people to use.

Anyway, Thank you!