Trying to make sure I’m using INat correctly. I was under the impression that animals that are feral (ie were domestic but are now living in the wild without human owners/intervention) are considered wild and therefore don’t need to be marked as captive/cultivated. A local park I visit regularly has…

The thread suggested by @saturnring is getting a little too long and complicated to read through. I think the simple answer is that the rabbits you refer to meet the definition of wild/feral and should not be marked as captive/cultivated. Your options would be (a) to explicitly include a statement…

[image] worldtraveler27: I’ve gone ahead and deleted them for now because I have no interest in posting “captive” animals on here. It’s a good idea to leave the observations up. In situations like that they can be important information for the Establishment of a non-native population of anim…

You can reverse the single Not Wild vote, by adding your own Wild vote. A note or comment up front will pre-empt most disagreement about Wild / Not.

I agree with everyone else here. Repost with a short explanation.

Thank you everyone! I’ll definitely keep that in mind for the future. I did leave an explanation on the posting that they were found in a park living wild, but I’ll make sure to maybe put it in my species identification next time so it’s more obvious. Thank you!

[image] worldtraveler27: I was under the impression that animals that are feral (ie were domestic but are now living in the wild without human owners/intervention) are considered wild and therefore don’t need to be marked as captive/cultivated. You were correct. Released/escaped/feral pet rab…

There is a great group that tries to keep an eye on observations such as yours that get incorrectly marked “captive”. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ferals-waifs-and-strays-wild-observations-of-domesticated-species

I recommend writing in the description that they were found in a park and may be someones previous pets and are now feral.

As far as I know, “feral” means a domesticated animal that was born in the wild. If it’s an escapee, it’s a stray, though obviously INat doesn’t have an option for that. The distinction mostly matters if you want to catch the animal and make it a pet; strays can generally go back to living in human …

Feral vs captive/cultivated

General

saturnring January 22, 2023, 7:30am 2

Take a look at this topic: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/feral-observations-keep-getting-marked-as-casual/30407/33

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Good reference for why feral animals are considered wild General	3	636	February 2, 2024
Feral observations keep getting marked as “casual” General	37	2182	April 22, 2022
Is it allowed to label creatures like Felis catus as"wild"" General question	4	194	June 18, 2025
How to mark escaped/free-roaming pets? General	22	1580	September 8, 2023
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Feral vs captive/cultivated

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