When it comes to identifying mammals on iNaturalists, specifically ones that are part of the Ruminants suborder, sometimes observations that pop up in the “Needs ID” category are domestic cattle observations. In some of these observations, it is quite apparent that these cattle are owned with the presence of their ear tag, and therefore have an owner. What is not apparent, though, is that sometimes these cattle do not show themselves as being in a fenced in field where ranchers will typically keep their cattle enclosed. In cases where a cattle is clearly owned by a rancher but is an obvious free ranging cattle, do they qualify for being research grade eligible?
My take on this question would be yes based on a couple of reasons, however I am uncertain if this has been brought up before, and if it hasn’t, what the rest of the community believes is the best way to mark free range cattle observations (as well as other ruminants like sheep) when it comes to the DQA.
Based on my familiarity on how the DQA works, organisms that qualify for research grade eligibility is when an organism is observed as being wild or feral. For example, if there is a pet corn snake that has been released by its owners into the wild of California and a member of iNaturalists finds the snake and observes it as being a wild, feral snake, it would qualify for research grade. When an organism that is very evidently captive and does not sustain itself, or has any free will or choice to go wherever it wants, like a zebra in a zoo, it would be considered captive. But what if we have an animal that is obviously owned by a person through an ear tag, but has free will to go wherever it chooses to go, and is currently self sustaining itself in a free ranging scenario? Although I have my suspicion on how this would qualify, I am still uncertain because of the multiple different moving parts to a scenario like this, and I would love to hear opinions on how others think observations like this should be marked.
This is an interesting situation. Personally, I would count it as captive. Free range livestock is still used for agricultural purposes and is still owned by someone. A released animal, like the pet snake example you mentioned had an owner previously but does not anymore.
They are “Captive/Cultivated”, no different than livestock confined within a fence.
There would have to be enough evidence to suggest they were at least a generation removed from “owned” animals (e.g. no evidence of ownership, such as no brands, ear tags, etc., on adult animals) for them to be considered feral/“wild”, IMO.
Whether confined to 1 acre or 10,000 acres, they are still captive in my opinion, Are exotic animals in a drive-thru safari wild?
Free range means they are allowed to roam and forage freely, it does not mean that they are not captive.
Cattle in the western US can be free ranging on very large ranches but they are confined by barbed wire fences and often seasonally moved to different pastures. So, yes they can wander, but not beyond where their owners want them. However, there are feral cattle that have escaped beyond where they should be and in many cases have no known owner. I’d call these cattle wild by iNat standards.
That’s another great example that I didn’t think about now that you mention it. Trout that were raised in the hatcheries and if observed in the hatchery are going to be marked captive but if you manage to catch one right after they get stocked into a lake they officially become feral and can be considered for research grade. I would expect cattle to be a very similar situation, but it’s also so different. Like, where do we draw the line? Because free ranching cattle have owners, but they aren’t being contained when they are say, free ranging on National Forest Land, which is something that I’ve personally seen this case a lot in Northeastern Oregon. The Forest Service here allows ranchers to graze cattle on their land. So do we consider that enough for them to be considered feral? They are not going to be actively taken care of, they’ll manage to self sustain themselves, and are not being restricted to a single location. There really isn’t a simple answer to this, it seems. It’s going to require some deep conversation I am thinking.
I guess my question is more so in relation to free ranging cattle on public land. In Northeastern Oregon, the Forest Service allows ranchers to graze cattle on the forest lands, so there is no actual fencing that will contain these cattle. In reality, they could possibly travel a few hundred miles depending on where they get dropped off from. I also recently (about four weeks ago I think it’s been now) saw a free ranching herd of sheep here in Northeastern Oregon, too. There did happen to be a sheep dog among them, but otherwise I saw no ranchers actively herding those sheep in a relatively thick forest. So in theory, these sheep and these cattle have no restrictions on where they can go because there is no fences that would otherwise prevent them from wandering somewhere else that they aren’t intended to be. They have complete will over their own selves. So would we consider them as being technically feral and therefore eligible for research grade?
I do agree though that in your example, in large pastures that span many acres they would be confined in a sense and would be considered captive, but this question I have is a lot broader than that.
I just took a look at this and there is a good point brought up here. Would free ranging cattle on uncontained land be considered managed or captive? This is a very interesting way to look at this.
From everything you describe, these aren’t feral/“wild” cattle or sheep. They are animals dumped out on public lands for the purpose of cheap grazing, in this case, even tended apparently by a lifestock guardian dog, and they will be rounded up again with time.
There are feral cattle, camels, buffaloes, wild boars, goats in Australia and New Zealand. It is mentioned in books that some seafarers released goats onto islands, so that they can have a supply of meat. Various islands throughout the world, like in the story of Robinson Crusoe.
iNat defines “captive” as being in that place at that time because humans wanted it to be there. So even if free-ranging cattle chose the specific location where they were seen (rather than, say, 100 meters away in the same patch of grassland), they are not allowed to roam indiscriminately and are thus in the area where humans want them to be.
I do think that this definition doesn’t address the particular situation of free-ranging animals very adequately, since in some respects (ecosystem impact etc) they act rather like wild animals, but of course they don’t represent wild populations, which is what people looking at occurrence data are generally going to be interested in.
One issue is that for many free-ranging animals, it is difficult to be sure whether they are captive populations or feral ones. Sometimes the boundary between “dependent on humans” and “accepts human offerings but makes its own choices” can also be rather blurred. Cattle have tags, but outdoor housecats may or may not have a collar. Domestic honeybees are typically not marked, so unless they happen to entering a hive box, there is practically no way to tell whether they are from a managed hive or a wild-living one. As a result, there are over 450,000 “wild” observations of Apis mellifera, a large percentage of which are probably not wild at all. So it does seem like there is a bit of arbitrariness in how free-ranging animals are recorded, depending on the taxon and how easy it is to determine that they are owned by humans.
I’d consider a free range cow or steer captive. The ranchers know roughly where they are and can round them up when they’re going to a CAFO and/or slaughter. But an escaped cow, like the Polish cow that ran off with some bison, I’d consider feral and not captive.
The “wild” horses thing is where my main sticking point lies in this whole debate. Being from the eastern USA, people travel from far and wide to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia to see the “wild” ponies. Of course all ponies in the Americas now were introduced by humans, but introduced species can still be “wild”. But for these Chincoteague ponies, here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:
“The Virginia herd (referred to as Chincoteague ponies) lives within the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, and is owned by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. The Virginia ponies are treated to twice-yearly veterinary inspections, which prepare them for life among the general equine population if they are sold at auction.”
So these are non-native free-ranging ponies that have an owner, are given routine vet checkups, and are gathered up periodically to be sold by their owners. And while they’re not technically fenced in, they’re restricted to an island, and any that try to leave are captured and put back. But they’re all labeled as “wild” and “research grade” here on inat, presumably because the refuge gains tourism by advertising them as “Wild Ponies”. I personally don’t see much of a difference between the Chincoteague ponies, free-range cattle, and outdoor pet cats. Letting the domesticated animals you own wander around outside doesn’t make them wild, in my opinion.
Thank you for mentioning honeybees. Knowing that a lot of my “wild” honeybee observations are probably someone’s free-range invertebrate livestock always bothers me a little, but as you say, there’s no real way to know which are feral and which aren’t.
The American Birding Associating draws the line at “could the population sustain itself without human assistance” (so, for example, Monk Parakeets in NYC and recently re-introduced California Condors that aren’t breeding yet don’t “count”), but iNat is a lot more forgiving and just seems to go with “is this individual here because a person deliberately placed it here-ish?” I’m not sure which one I prefer…
Has there been discussion about adding a third option to “Wild/Captive” to indicate “Cannot be Determined”? That’s an option for Alive/Dead, and for Sex, and it’s certainly the case very often than an organism’s provenance cannot be determined, but we’re stuck with having to choose one option or the other. See also: very old trees in cities that would require extensive research to determine if a person planted them in 1895 or just built the park around pre-existing trees.