Oh, I started hating dog owners this year, all winter watching unleashed dogs running through ducks back and forth, while owner was not existent, staying and saying very quietly the dog’s name.
Answering to other proposals, I never can answer questions that go out of nowhere, I’m asked about aperture of my lens by another birder and need a minute to think about numbers and then say them wrong, or a woman with a child were asking about bird in the forest and I was standing there with a thought on my face, as I could only say “many, lots of bird species here…”. And if it’s a more adrenaline situation I can’t even remember about that way (I read about it before). I need more practice! Or less!
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I was thinking about your comment this morning when out on my daily walk. Men alone in the bush are thought of as weird, to be avoided, but a woman alone is a target for many men.
@fffffffff (and others) I’m one of those people who lets their dogs off leash. However, I know my dog, and what he will do. He is not aggressive (he’s a bit nosy though), doesn’t chase wildlife or other dogs. When I meet someone, I grab his collar, not because I want to control him but because people might be afraid of dogs. I think that is the key - know your dog and behave accordingly. I know mine will eat a dead fish, no matter what I say, but he will only chase geese if I point them out. If I’m concerned, I’ll leash him.
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I’m okay with dogs in general, well, here almost nobody uses leashes all the time, even though it’s the law for bigger than small dogs, but I do not like anything that scares ducks and not just once, but for some minutes, some owners are owned by their dogs.
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On Noordhoek beach (Cape Town) we have a few people trying to protect birds like African black oystercatchers from My Dog Must Run Free.
And a botanist at Rondebosch Common - gently explaining that dog poop adds nutrients and promotes alien plants. Please take your dog’s poop home or bin it.
I hike in a group, and we haven’t had problem people face to face. Bunch of little old ladies …
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Sorry to hear about this disturbing encounter, @fffffffff. What a kook.
I suspect that when I’m out iNatting, I’ve probably been the creepy one…I tend to follow the same strategy as @tony, standing still off to the side of the trail (which is a good way to see more critters!). If anyone starts a conversation with me, I’ll happily blither on about all the cool stuff I’ve just seen. Often, people are quite interested, but sometimes they just look at me goggle-eyed and make a quick exit.
One of my favorite moments was when I saw red-headed woodpeckers for the first time in Miami Whitewater park. A guy was just getting out of his car to hit the trail and I asked him if he was into birding at all. “No,” he said, looking a bit shy. Not to be put off, I told him all about the marvelous pair of woodpeckers I’d just seen and how exciting it was to see them in this area and how it was a new lifer for me and… I think I scared the bejesus out of the poor guy (and I’m a petite female, btw).
So, I guess it can go both ways. I’d say follow your instincts, and stay safe out there!
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I do pretty much the same. I’ve had several unfavorable encounters with people when in an urban setting, whether it be overly paranoid people assuming that me walking around alleyways is reason to yell at me and call the police, or an adjacent property-owner that’s suspicious of me trespassing. If people come by I usually just very obviously point my camera at a plant so that it’s clear what I’m doing. Luckily the bad encounters are vastly outnumbered by those who are genuinely curious about what I’m photographing.
It is of course much less of a problem at parks or preserves where people are there to see nature as well, but me wondering around off trail alone pointing a giant telephoto lens up in the air is guaranteed to cause some weird looks.
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Im sorry you had to deal with that situation. Personally I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve never had those types of encounters before, however I take a few precautions to keep it that way. I usually go iNatting around countryside houses and alongside highways, so those areas are not as heavily populated as a park might be.
The way I see it there’s two types of approach to preventing uncomfortable or potentially dangerous encounters: the friendly way and the fight or flight way.
The “friendly way” means you have to try to de-escalate before the situation even occurs. I usually do this by waving or saying hello if I think I might be seen as suspicious. Being polite and trying to understand the people you’re around and why they might be inclined to get angry/suspicious at you (do they think im a thief? a creep? are they intimidated by me?) helps a lot with this type of approach.
Example: once I was looking for animal bones in a roadside ditch that had houses in front. I noticed a man looking directly at me from inside his property like I was a potential danger, so I calmly waved, approached the front gate and politely let him know that I was there looking for critters and meant no harm.
The “fight or flight way”: this basically means you make yourself as prepared for a dangerous encounter as possible. This can apply for when you’re out taking pics or just as general life advice. It might be a bit controversial, but I always carry a knife with me when I leave the house, whether im out iNatting or not. A knife is a tool like any other, so having one ready doesn’t mean you will have to use it for self defence (I’ve been carrying knives for over 5 years and never once I had to use them for that) but if the situation does arise its better to have access to one. Of course check the laws in your country to make sure its legal to carry one, but if it is I’d say do not keep it in your backpack/bag but rather on your belt or pocket so you can take them out quickly. You’ll find that the knife will come in handy in all sorts of situations, from cutting mushrooms to releasing trapped animals from nets and such.
Another way to prevent confrontations is by being as intimidating as you can. I’ve literally never been mugged in all my life thanks to this (one guy tried to make me hand him my phone and I lowkey convinced him that he would be a bad person if he robbed me?). Now you’re probably thinking this is total bs, but as a 5’3 woman in a third world country I assure you it works. Mostly it comes down to posturing and mentally preparing yourself to act fast. Most of the time if you look like you can and will put up a fight you become not worth the trouble, so try to not look like you’re scared but rather angry or alert. Suspicious pair of bikers passing you by slowly? Look at them straight in the eye while you continue walking, do NOT speed up unless you’re ready to run away for real, ideally walk slightly slower while maintaining eye contact (have literally had this happen and they just kept going). Also try to not have very expensive thing on show while walking outside, not sure how that works with your camera tho, sorry.
Also while all this advice comes from personal experience always always listen to your gut and prioritize your safety. If you do not think you can apply this methods that’s perfectly fine and it’s much better to just comply with a mugger than get shot or something (dramatic much? probably, but that type of situation is not uncommon here). I hope this helps!
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stay safe and keep observing. as long as it’s safe and not too traumatizing, i tend to think it’s better to go back to the place as you would have before and let future good experiences wipe away the memory of the bad experience.
i don’t know what the social norms are in Russia, but if i encounter someone here who i just don’t want to continue an interaction with, i can usually just end it with some signal that it’s time to stop. a look at a watch and “oh, i’ve got to get going” (even if i have no intention of leaving an area) is usually enough to stop any interaction with a rando. or maybe something a little nicer like, “thanks for chatting with me, but i should get moving before x”, where x can be any random excuse like “it starts raining”, “it gets too hot”, “it gets too cold”, “it gets too dark”, “the mosquitos get too bad”, etc.
where i am, and in my situation, the most common threat is off-leash dogs and bicyclists who don’t slow down on narrow trails. i’ve adopted the perspective that it’s better to miss the great photo of whatever i was looking at than to let a dog or bicyclist end me. the chances are low that any given dog or bicyclist would actually cause harm, but it takes just one bad encounter. so whenever i notice a dog or bicycle or even a rando acting in a strange way, i’ll get up and make sure they know that i see them, put up my gear if there’s time, give them room to pass, and then go back to what i was doing only after they have passed. when i’m running, i’ll stop whenever off-leash dogs start to chase me, too. a lot of times, those dogs get bored once i’m no longer in motion and go back to their people. stopping for the moment gives me a chance to give the people dirty looks, as appropriate, too.
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@abrub Your whole post is excellent advice. In many ways, it reinforces what I’ve heard from public safety officers. Especially, Look them in the eye and acknowledge you see them…
I think of this as the “smile and wave” technique, where you smile, wave, and say hi fairly loudly, an go on about your business in a confident way.
As a public safety officer explained it, this lets them know you are ~aware~, that they have been noticed, it lets others nearby know you are there, and the person making you uncomfortable may realize you will likely remember details about them, and be able to describe them if anything happens to you or someone else nearby. It also humanizes you to them. In many cases, creepy people do not want to be unduly noticed; they want to operate in secret.
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@fffffffff , I’m so sorry this happened! This kind of thing stays with one and can make one hesitant to go out. I have experienced such things. Everything from overly friendly grandmothers at a bus stop who want to tell me all about their family to angry landowners to men wondering if I’m alone because I’m looking for a sexual partner. One young man grabbed me, kissed me, and when I managed to begin fighting back, knocked me down and – walked away, grinning over his shoulder. That was many decades ago but I still remember it well. went home trembling, crying and trying not to, and it took three days to calm down. I hope you keep going, though, as much as you can. Below are some random thoughts resulting from thinking and learning about my own experiences.
When I was younger, I would get really angry that people would think it OK to just come up and talk with me. I wasn’t doing anything to welcome them, but they wanted to start conversations. Years later, I realized that I’m introverted, happy to keep to myself. Lots of more extroverted people strongly prefer to talk to others, and can’t grasp that anyone would feel differently.
Many people in cities sleep in tiny apartments or rooms and treat their neighborhood like the rest of their house. They feel as free to talk to anyone there as I would feel to talk to someone in my living room. (I, a serious introvert, feel differently.)
People living in the country take a protective interest in their whole neighborhood, part of taking care of each other. So of course they want to know what I’m doing there. Most are satisfied with a little bit of explanation. “It’s a game we botanists play” seems to work. “Like pokemon but with real things.”
Despite all these reasons that people who interrupt and annoy us may be benign, you ran into somebody who was really out of line. He shouldn’t have behaved that way. Maybe he’s really a jerk. Maybe the stress of the pandemic has him right on the edge. Maybe he was just having a bad day. But he certainly behaved badly!
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I try to get to know all of the land owners in the area, and then if somebody stops me I will mention the owner’s name, try to start a conversation. Generally they will leave me alone if I know the owner.
I end up on private and federal property a lot when hopping from bush block to bush block (“wow, Is that a western whistler I can hear? I have to go see!” )
I myself have been guilty of stopping people in a nature reserve next to my house, thinking that they could be arsonists- (Turned out that they were students from a university doing a spotlight for a critically endangered species of possum that lives in that nature reserve 
)
I have only ever been stopped by people driving past and asking if I need a lift (I don’t know why anyone would stop a sketchy looking teenager with a camera.) I don’t know their motives, and I don’t care. I just tell them that I’m going for a walk. I generally also try to have an escape plan if somebody was to stop me, and a phone accessible.
Rangers have stopped me as well, but they generally are happy to see somebody using the nature reserves
I’m sorry to hear about your experience @fffffffff . Don’t let it stop you enjoying nature!
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Almost every person I encounter while out in nature ignores me, and I tend to ignore them back. Even someone asking me what I’m doing is a rare occurrence, and I’m always happy to explain. That being said I have encountered people who are obviously suspicious of me, though I’ve never had to police called on me or anything like that. When I went to Sax-Zim Bog this past winter I was told to never go down a particular road because a man who lived there would would send attack dogs (or occasionally shoot) at anyone who drove past on the PUBLIC ROAD!!! Needless to say I did not go there.
What happens much more often is I see someone doing things that I know they are not supposed to be doing. I don’t usually say anything to avoid any potential confrontation, but lighting fires in the woods of a public park filled with lots of flammable dry brush and walking dogs in a closed Piping Plover breeding area really makes me wish I had done something.
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Hey, sorry you went through that. That’s terrible. I’ve come away from these types of situations feeling bad about humanity, but I always try to remind myself that it’s not something that happens often. Anywhere you go, you’ll find people who are “off”, combative and who enjoy being azz4ol3z.
I’ve never had anyone give me any real trouble while I was out iNatting. I realize that I’m a guy approaching 50, so my experience will be different from yours. However, I do live in Texas and I do get people sometimes asking me questions about what I’m doing, sometimes with a look of skepticism/judgement. My approach is to overwhelm them with kindness and enthusiasm (and sometimes make them wish they hadn’t asked). I’ll go on and on about some mundane weeds or insect - things I know they have no interest in. Making them think you’re a real weirdo is a great way to make people keep walking. :) Also, if it’s just some random person (not police/security) - dropping names of organizations (iNaturalist, Parks and Wildlife, Master Naturalist (make up the name of a chapter)) can make it sound like you’re doing something especially important. I think being overly positive and enthusiastic about nature (to the point of seeming almost creepy) is a great way to keep negative people away.
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A man was walking up and down outside our house (contractor waiting for the neighbour to arrive and let him offload) I stare. He smiles and waves. But - COVID - cheesy grin?! Where is his mask? Strange times. Also makes approaching hikers look shifty - sorry ‘forgot’ my mask
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One or two times people have been miffed by themselves finding themselves to have been included in an image, and sometimes teens find it funny when I am out patrolling for snakes with a net and box, but things usually go well.
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Glad to see there are a few people that can live without a mask OUTSIDE.
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Sorry to hear about your bad experiences. I suspect there is a cultural component to this, too, as well as a location factor. My experiences hiking alone in Germany and the US have been mostly positive, but they also have been almost all in touristy areas with a good amount of traffic and/or patrolled by rangers. Seeing someone taking pictures along the trail is not unusual, and if someone asks what you’re photographing they are often genuinely curious and hoping to get a picture themselves if it’s interesting enough to them. Often people will ask to have their picture taken to memorize the trip, and they are trusting enough to hand you their own camera or cell phone for that. Sometimes someone will offer to take your picture, too, but I usually politely decline since I’m out there to document nature itself, not my trip into nature.
The most negative experiences I’ve had involved people acting entitled to do as they want, climbing fences and disrespecting signage, and yes the occasional free-running dog where dogs should be leashed and mountain bikers using trails where they shouldn’t be. We also get some plant poachers in our area but they are typically trying to hide and distract from what they’re doing because it is obviously illegal, so if I notice it or they point at my camera and ask if I’ve gotten pictures of plant XYZ I just play clueless tourist but take a mental note so I can report the incident to a ranger. It’s their job, not mine, to bust the poachers.
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I’d say interactions with people here are mostly positive, and I helped some people with their pics using their phone, though nobody cares about laws, it is cultural, everyone does what they actually can’t do in nature preserves, etc. and I see dog owners taking dog’s poop with them like once a year, so there’s no actual reason to photograph those who do something out of rules, as workers know it all too good without me.
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That sounded very disturbing! I also had worse situations, though gladly not connected with naturalism at all. Culturally people are quite closed here, so I’m alays surpised when someone comes to me with a question. I doubt he did that cause of pandemic, that city has almost no rules and even taxi drivers don’t care about masks, so it’s almost as it was before covid.
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@brian_d I have only had good interactions while doing pollinator surveys. When doing roadside bumble bee surveys in rural areas, I am sometimes approached by farmers who see me in the ditch and want to know what I’m doing. This is quite reasonable, as they tend to be very protective of their land. But it always makes me a little nervous, because I know there is potential for confrontation. I try to act friendly, and explain that I’m surveying bumble bees for the University. I also make sure they know that my instructions are to survey only in the public right-of-way, and I’m not allowed to go on private property without permission. Surprisingly, the response has been 100% positive (so far). Some are interested and ask questions. A couple farmers have even volunteered “You can go on my land, if you’d like.”
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