I occasionally weed through captive dead observations, and have come across some observations by a few users of cultural items (such as a leather bag with quills or feather decorations) on iNaturalist and IDing the item as one of the organisms whose remains were used for the object, such as “American Porcupine”.
Obviously these are all marked as captive, but I wonder if they should be on iNat at all. Things like leatherwork and quill work are important in many cultures, and I feel that these items made by indigenous peoples, while important, shouldn’t be on iNaturalist, as
I would be interested in hearing from staff how observations like this should be handled. Should they be flagged? I havn’t been able to find anything in the community guidelines.
I don’t really see an issue here. Would it be against iNat guidelines to upload a selfie while you’re wearing a leather jacket? No, and I don’t think it should be.
I don’t see this as anything like “uploading human remains.” Why should porcupine quill beadwork be any different than a porcupine roasting on a grill to be eaten? I wouldn’t call them “captive,” though, because the quills presumably came from a wild animal that was hunted, not from an animal raised in captivity. The problem is that there is no way of knowing where the porcupine came from, so it should be marked as “no accurate location.”
As long as someone’s not posting 1000 observations of say shell jewelry, it seems like you can just tag it captive/cultivated (and maybe incorrect location if that is likely to apply) and move on.I enjoy the occasional observation like this. I teach, and finding the occasional observation of a lei made from flowers or a meal being served on a banana leaf can serve as a fun example of how people use these species, which is one way to get students more interested.
I’d say if the observer is also the person who made the jewelry and can give an accurate location of where s/he collected the shell for that purpose, then it would be a legitimate observation.
I am thinking just the opposite: if somebody of the local community / culture made the jewellery, it is interesting to know that those shells are traditionally used in that way. If I made the jewellery, I should have taken photos of the shells on the beach where I collected them. - I have seen street sweepers here that use brooms made out of plants (Asteraceae? you can still see the dry flower heads) and was tempted to upload this observation.
Obviously, people may have strong opinions about posting some artifacts. I’d be OK with taking those down – if the photo in question was a problem. I suspect that usually it would not be. People make things from leather and porcupine quills for sale to tourists. Such objects presumably lack religious significance. And people may be posting their own creations, or other objects that people of the relevant culture would not mind having posted. So I’d say, let these go. If there is an objection, ask questions. Taking such photos down might be appropriate, on a case by case basis, but usually its not.
Porcupine quills used for beadwork should be labeled “captive/cultivated,” i.e. “Not wild.” Why? Whether the porcupine was wild or captive at the time that people got the quills, the quills used for beadwork are not where the porcupine freely intended them to be.
The possible cultural/religious significance is the thing that makes it different, although:
That said, I do think that some things are still inappropriate to upload to iNaturalist, and @sedgequeen summarizes what I was originally trying to say in a much more straightforward way:
To summarize, I would personally be uncomfortable with uploading an item with a cultural significance I didn’t understand, but I agree with @m_whitson that it is interesting to see how people use species in their culture.
This makes sense to me. I’d identify paper or leather as “human” rather than “vascular plants” or “cow”. I guess the context of the observation could change that though, e.g. if the observer clearly indicated it was for the original species used in the work.
The shells in my collection are not where they intended to be, either, but they aren’t “in captivity.” They are wild animals that were observed by me, collected (dead or alive) and later brought home. Similarly, the porcupine was observed by someone, killed, and its quills were collected for later use. The difference is that the porcupine hunter probably did not carry a notebook to record the collection details on the spot.
If you post the shell observations with the date and location where they were collected, they should be marked wild. The same for porcupine quills. If you post them with the date and place where they have been moved by humans, they should be marked “Not wild,” a.k.a. “Captive/cultivated.”
If you mark an observation “no accurate location” when the location is where the shells are now, you just open yourself to a useless argument, one that would be hard to win because the location would in fact be accurate (though not helpful). If you mark the observation “not wild” you’d be right. The observation would go to Casual and couldn’t logically be redeemed from there.
I was unclear. I was referring to the porcupine quills. The shells in my collection all have locality data, recorded at the time in my collection book, and that’s the time and place data that go on my observations.
If I ever get around to doing something crafty with my quills, I know exactly where they came from.
The quills (pelt) were a few feet from the skeletal remains. The hunter(s) were not human, did not leave record of who or when.
If the concern is of cultural significance, ask the observer. Most things I’ve seen made from quills are not culturally significant, but craft items.
Also one of the root purposes of inat is to engage people in the natural world. If someone decided they were interested in learning about the snails from a bunch of jewelry bought at a truck stop-- that fits the mission. Same with more interesting artifacts, we can’t say where a porcupine was hunted for it’s quills but it is still wildlife so I’d ID the porcupine, not the producer of the end product.
It also reminds of a debate I’ve seen on iNat a few times. Some users think that fish in a fish market (or bushmeat market) should always be marked captive or location inaccurate. I understand the argument, but I always think of the coelacanth, thought extinct until found in a fish market, by iNat standards it could not be RQ. It makes me wonder what other interesting discoveries are out there being deemed as not of value because the location can’t be pinpointed despite knowing the general area. It’s not so much that a rare interesting species showing up as casual can’t be useful still, but if a user is told “this doesn’t belong here” after posting a bunch of fish from a village market they could learn not to bother. Or if someone else marks them all casual so the user gets no engagement from the community they might just lose interest in inat.
I’m a bit of a broken record about casual observations in general, I just think there must be a better way. There are just so many users who have <20 observations of plants in the yard which never get any IDs and they go away forever. It’s a bad user experience for people who are showing a small amount of interest in the natural world.
But then these observation are in the garbage bin together with selfies, trash and whatever and can never be found again. The only reason to post an observation like this on iNat would be to know about the species used: What fibres are used to make this basket?