I would like to create total species lists for different taxa for my home country Germany (and perhaps other regions too). These lists are supposed to feature all species that have occured as wild within the region, including extinct species, vagrants and naturalised introduced species.
What is the best way to create such lists so that they are visible and useful to others. What’s the best procedure to highlight the scarcity or extinction of certain taxa within that region.
To help you understand my problems here’s my current work process and some uncertainties that have arisen.
Trying to create a complete list of mammals of Germany I would go to the checklist page of Germany and choose ‘mammals’.
The checklist here was surprisingly good already, but certainly not perfect. Many extinct (e.g. European Bison, European Ground Squirrel) or vagrant mammals (e.g. Beluga) were missing, so I added them. On the other hand some domesticated species appeared in the list, that have no wild populations (e.g. Domestic Horse, Domestic Dog). Some species have unclear status (e.g. Northern White-breasted Hedgehog).
I added all species that (to my knowledge) have occurred as wild since 1492. I looked into the records of domestic animals and marked some of them as captive (are free-roaming cats captive?!). I added Status information to all species as good as I could (e.g. Blue Whale → Native, irregular).
I wasn’t sure what status to give extirpated species (e.g. Bavarian Pine Vole) as there’s no status for this.
As I’m relatively new to Inat, I’m unsure if I made any mistakes and if my work is helpful at all.
I would like to add background information to unusual taxa such as vagrants and wonder whether it’s helpful or detrimental to upload accounts of observations that are not my own to said species (e.g. a newspaper article about a rare cetacean).
Any insight would be appreciated.
Kind regards
Mathieu