I’m surprised how many threads have already dealt with the problem; when I opened this one I assumed I’d be shown if there were already similar threads by the AI, but I wasn’t.
This thread for example went into much more detail than I did, but ultimately the problem is always the same. There are are animals that are not captive, but not feral (= wild) either. They are escaped/released pets that are unlikely to form new populations or even persist through the next winter.
The terms wild/captive do not fittingly apply. Peoples opinions on how to handle them differ for various reasons leading to an inconsistent treatment of these observations. The aforementioned guidelines leave out this recurring matter entirely, when there’s an entire section that’s supposed to address the topic. I think that section needs a thourough update and a clear guideline on how to handle this data.
The way it currently is makes me quite unhappy. Trying to figure out what species I still want to find in Germany I get lists of unobserved species that look like this
The only species here that are of relevance to me are Asp Viper and Catalonian Wall Lizard, which have wild or feral populations in Germany. All others are released/escaped pets, which won’t probably ever reproduce and which I don’t care about.
There are maps like these (of Domestic sheep), where I doubt that a single individual actually pertains to a wild population that isn’t closely monitored and managed by a human (in this case a shepherd).
I probably shouldn’t change the status of this Domestic Horse to captive as there is no fence or person visible nearby, although there’s a 100% chance it isn’t actually wild in any sense whatsoever.
Of course an off-leash dog that ran away from its owner can have devastating effects to an ecosystem, but so do off-leash dogs with nearby owners who don’t care.