I’ve started looking into observations of non-native introduced species within the UK. What I’ve encountered is it’s quite common for well intentioned users to incorrectly mark a valid observation as captive.
I’ve looked through three species already and some of those animals are poorly known to have an introduced population in the UK so it’s not really common knowledge. Due to the fact they have an introduced population that isn’t well known it seems well intentioned users mark them as captive and the observation is seemingly hidden from view forever.
If you’re curious about a species that has been introduced and wonder why they might have very little wild observations in your given country, or perhaps no observations at all I encourage you to go and check. You might be surprised what you find.
Obviously don’t go marking clearly captive animals as wild, use your initiative to figure out if it’s really captive or not. Most people can tell what a zoo enclosure might look like with ropes, wooden perches, toys, fencing, etc in the background. You can also check google maps to make sure there isn’t a zoo in the location of the coordinates provided. Also you can look around the immediate area and if the species has been seen nearby before in the wild it makes the observation more likely to also be wild. I looked through many truly captive observations, but I also managed to find several genuinely wild ones.
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These observations aren’t “hidden from view”, as you can tell - they are there for knowledgeable users and local experts to fish, from the trashbag of “casuals” where they’ve been and will remain buried thanks to the vote of well-meaning but misinformed users out of their depth :) It’s an uphill battle you can’t win.
You can also use the Geomodel to check for Anomalies.
But the identifier needs to choose between IS an Anomaly.
Or is NOT.
https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/99727-using-the-geomodel-to-highlight-unusual-observations
@shotshot if you can pull together a team, it is amazing how the - uphill battle you can’t win, can turn right.
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Sometimes I do wonder if possibly adding a “not established” annotation to more Classes than just reptiles and amphibians would reduce the frequency of this happening (for populations that are actually established it would make little difference but would at least potentially help revise a few from the cesspit of falsely marked captive observations). Aside from that just overall some diligent identifiers to hopefully scan through the pile and mark them accordingly
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I fear it would simply add extra complication to an issue that’s already difficult enough.
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For the Eastern Cape chameleons in Cape Town, the taxon specialist leave a comment about - known population at … and …
That helps people who come to those obs later, and spreads the knowledge.
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