This obs for example: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/284956080

The example that comes to mind is prey impaled on thorns and barbed wire by a shrike. My first awareness of shrikes, long before iNat existed, before I had ever held a digital camera, was walking along a path in Florida and there were multiple large crickets, and various other bits of animals, stuck…

I would say a dead animal can be evidence for the predator that killed it, in theory – but usually we can’t tell. If the kill was witnessed and the observer explains that in a note, I’d certainly believe it! However, I’d have trouble confirming it. Hard to predict what I’d do.

Compare this to a situation where someone posts a hopelessly distant and fuzzy photo of a bird and identifies it as a specific species, with a note that they saw it better in person. You can either ignore the observation, or ID it as “Birds”, with a note that it can’t identified further based on the…

I partly disagree. If the bird is dead and the person ID’s it for a cat because he saw the cat kill it, I think it’s legitimate to leave the post at “cat” though I wouldn’t feel like it I could confirm it.

It is legitimate to use observer notes as part of the evidence provided in addition to photo/audio media. IDers do this all the time – i.e., information about habitat, or host plant, or smell, or a call heard but not recorded. I imagine that people have different thresholds for how much written sup…

This raises the question then, of what could be considered evidence? If I see a bear carrying a stick, which it then drops, can I photograph the stick and tag it as a bear? I would instinctively say no, but why not? Whether the animal drops a bird or stick, all we have is the object that was droppe…

It’s certainly evidence but often not verifiable evidence, cat predation being a good example. I think everyone’s covered it well… I think there are limited cases where it could be useful to upload it as an observation, like characteristic predation such as shrikes or a stashed leopard kill, or comb…

Dead bird in my garden . We have cats. But they pluck the feathers off first. And they don’t ‘stash the residue in the ivy’. But still my obs is - bird, dead. Watching the Evidence of Organism votes on the original link. 1 yes (on what basis?) 2 no (including mine) = Casual

My issue is that sometimes even very skilled observers are mistaken, and describe an organism that doesn’t match the photos they provide. That happens often enough on observations with images that it’s makes observer notes difficult to use, unless they are very detailed. In this case, people often …

My understanding is that “Evidence of Organism” means “does this photo contain AN organism”, not “does it contain THE organism that it’s identified as”. If that’s the case, than the answer to that question should be yes, but the ID could still be just “Vertebrates”, if you don’t feel like the photo …

Is a dead animal evidence for the animal that killed it?

General

Topic		Replies	Views
Killed prey as evidence of presence etc General	9	1145	October 17, 2022
What is evidence? General	60	8120	August 5, 2021
How much weight should descriptions of organisms carry when IDing? General	25	710	August 28, 2024
Photos of dead animals General	43	11810	August 26, 2019
Bones from a living animal? General	20	1428	October 19, 2021

Is a dead animal evidence for the animal that killed it?

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