I think this is why the “casual grade” observation exists. iNat could easily take down/delete observations that don’t meet the definition of “wild”, but by putting them into this category, it allows for the site to be used to study these sorts of organisms as part of the ecosystem. I’m sure it would be easy to brainstorm a dozen different examples of non-wild organisms having dramatic impacts on the local environment- for me it’s artificially-planted plants serving as hosts for local insects (some introduced insects exclusively feed on landscape plants in some parts of their range). There’s the free-range cattle/sheep grazing issue. There’s outdoor pet cats (not just feral, but pets left outside) having an impact on local bird and rodent populations. I’m sure there’s loads more. While these plants/grazers/pets are not “wild” by iNat’s definition, one can still upload records of them, and there are tens of thousands of such records here to use, just marked as “casual” since they’re not the main thing iNat is meant for. It’s a great compromise imo.
Surely not in that order. ;-)
While my pet sheep and goats (no “processing” in their destiny, thank you very much) were allowed to roam freely and were self-sustaining, to the authorities they were however livestock (=> obligatory ear tags, lots of bureaucracy and book-keeping, mandatory sanitary checks by local public veterinary service). They were certainly and recognizably ‘captive’ => i.e. casual observations. Actually, the term ‘casual’ for such observations irks me much more than anything else (all my observations occur casually, whether snail, butterfly, woodpecker or badger).
I fixed it for you:
But the ABA also arbitrarily excludes many established populations just because they don’t feel like counting them (despite meeting all of their criteria), so I don’t think we should care what they do.
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