iNat apprehension from land managers

[clay_s]

@doc_lingo

My personal experience has been that some property owners/managers are concerned with having rare species documented on the property. If, a rare species is found, a properties value can plummet or even become worthless to some because it can no longer be developed, just my .02 cents.

If that is their concern, they shouldn’t let anyone ID things on their property, not just prevent publishing to iNat.

[clay_s]

@colincroft

Any rancher/farmer who mistakes me backpacking around–or typically driving my Prius around to get there–for a potential “rustler” needs to be in a different line of work ;)

Any good rustler is gonna get the lay of the land before doing rustling. Perhaps walking around taking photos :P

[doc_lingo]

You are exactly right, it’s not only inaturalist they are against, it’s anyone, they are afraid that it could impact the value of the property in a negative way.

I had a neighbor who owned several hundred acres, they were planning to develop the property until a contractor spotted an extremely rare snake, now the property is essentially worthless, no disturbing the area at all because of the snake. This is what some people fear, I personally would rather protect the species.

[kiwifergus]

Yeah, but what if it cost you personally, say, $1 million, or over half your nett worth… Let’s put it into perspective, what if observing that snake meant you would lose half of all your observations… would you be tempted to walk past it and not make an observation for it? You can’t blame them for their views about this stuff…

[charlie]

The land doesn’t become worthless it just becomes difficult to do one thing that the broken economic system heavily and inappropriately incentivizes. The problem isn’t the snake or data about it, nor the landowner for that matter. Some of the problem is the developers but mostly it’s just a broken system.

[henk1]

My experience as a forest manager in Portugal, biodiversity data are an asset. Especially in more intensive management systems, any data on rare species is valuable because it allows us to take protective measures timely. Therefor, we encourage local naturalists to share information about natural values with us. I must say, it allowed us access to critical info about raptor nesting sites etc., protecting them from disturbance.
All data collected in our estates, by staff-members or external specialists, are published at iNaturalist (except disturbance sensitive info). We want people to know what’s out there and they are free to discover.
In my opinion, much more damage is done to nature values through ignorance and unintentional disturbance than by people abusing of data available on internet (being iNaturalist or other systems). But I am talking about Portugal, maybe in other countries this is not the case.
I’m my experience, most landowners get proud of “their” natural values, when they learn what values they have without knowing it before. And many times they are willing to include voluntarily protective measure in their managent procedures. So, communication between observers and landowners is crucial to create support and mutual understanding for data collection and publication.

[sedgequeen]

I view the basic purpose of iNaturalist to be recording the location a species was in and the date it was there. An electronic equivalent of herbarium specimens. Therefore, I view observations without geographic information as useless (however valued they may be by the observer). Please record locations and use “obscured” for organisms and places you don’t want publicly available.

(Note that some organisms simply cannot be identified without knowing at least which half of the continent they’re on!)

[sedgequeen]

[I apologiz e for posting what was considered a new topic, and I have deleted it.]

[kiwifergus]

I agree, location is a good thing, one of the 3 facets that make an observation

[clay_s]

@doc_lingo

You are exactly right, it’s not only inaturalist they are against, it’s anyone, they are afraid that it could impact the value of the property in a negative way.

I had a neighbor who owned several hundred acres, they were planning to develop the property until a contractor spotted an extremely rare snake, now the property is essentially worthless, no disturbing the area at all because of the snake. This is what some people fear, I personally would rather protect the species.

It would depend how much of my wealth it consisted of and how close to retirement I am. Having something declared historical has similar issues, unless the historical aspects are popular and/or well known.

Also since a contractor found it, the guy was probably out monies spent on whatever was already done on top of the property value.

I wonder what type of things are dis/allowed on properties with protected snakes.

Florida has quite a few endangered snakes:

|[Key Ringneck Snake] |Diadophis punctatus acricus |Threatened|
|[Eastern Indigo Snake] |Drymarchon corais couperi |Threatened|
|[Red Rat Snake] |Elaphe guttate |SSC (1)|
|[Atlantic Salt Marsh Water Snake] |Nerodia clarkii taeniata |Threatened|
|[Florida Pine Snake] |Pituophis melanoleucus mugitus |SSC (2)|
|[Short Tailed Snake] |Stilosoma extenuatum |Threatened|
|[Florida Brown Snake] |Storeria dekayi victa |Threatened|
|[Rim Rock Crown Snake] |Tantilla oolitica |Threatened|
|[Florida Ribbon Snake] |Thamnophis sauritus sackeni |Threatened|

[kiwifergus]

I personally would see it as an extra challenge… How can I incorporate a habitat for that snake into the design of whatever it is we are attempting to create… AND make it cost effective as well!

[charlie]

the problem isn’t landowners, who are just more people trying to get by most of the time. The problem is developers who (editing rant to tone it down) are awful.