I recently found that all Scolia wasp species in Czechia have hidden coordinates. Is this a bug or an intention? I run a project aimed at wild pollinators in Brno, CZ (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/divoci-opylovaci-v-brne) and their preservation in cooperation with public greenery policy and it would be great to have the opportunity to see all the observations. Is there a way to get this done?
Thank you,
Martin
The place in your project is probably too small to include observations with obscured locations. I believe the place must contain the entire bounding box to include them.
Taxa with a conservation status of “endangered” in a particular country are set as obscured by default.
For taxa where the primary risk is habitat loss or pollution or similar concerns rather than threat of poaching if the location were known, this can be changed to open. See the help article on taxon geoprivacy.
If you believe that obscuring the location is not warranted for Scolia hirta and there are no Czech laws that would require obscuring, you can create a flag on the taxon page explaining why obscuring is not necessary/useful and request that this be reconsidered.
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Thank you. I’ll try the flag because it is exactly the case you describe - it is not an orchid or a white rhino but a wasp:-) The only direct threat I can think about is that there was a sensational article in Czech newspapers last summer, warning against these “huge yellow-striped wasps”. Plus this project should aim at habitat monitoring as well.
Yeah, when looking at hymenoptera last summer I was rather surprised to see Scolia hirta obscured in Czechia. They are considered endangered in Germany (though not obscured there), but the rarity seems to be more due to their preference for warm and sandy habitats rather than currently declining populations – on the contrary, they have actually been expanding their range in recent years. Where I live in eastern Germany they are not particularly uncommon and I would expect this to also be the case in parts of Czechia where conditions are suitable.
While some people might be inclined to kill them if they encounter them (because “big scary wasp”), I doubt they are valuable to collectors and it seems to me that there is probably little risk in revealing the location where an individual was previously seen, since they are highly mobile insects and do not nest in large aggregations susceptible to mass extermination attempts.
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