Is a photo of entrails too offensive for iNaturalist?

I have twice now come across what looks like a completely intact coil of fresh entrails about hand width in size in the middle of a path at Mount Spokane, Washington. (Ponderosa pine forest.) I didn’t see any evidence of the rest of the dead animal’s body, not even tufts of fur. There is some scat next to the entrails, but I don’t know if it is from the dead animal or from the predator. If I upload the photo (large and in focus), would it get flagged as inappropriate? I am curious about what animal would do such surgical precision in the disembowelment, and what animal the entrails are from.

I don’t imagine it would be offensive.
I think one of the observations in “Weird Wild Wonders” is an intestine, and shots of animal remains in rather gory stages are not unknown on iNaturalist.

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Definitely not, in my mind. Kills are part of nature. In fact, I posted some years ago: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/27189 It was at a summer camp I worked for, and we watched a red-tailed hawk catch a gopher then remove its large intestines and drop them before flying off. Extremely surgical.

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If any of the animal is intact… one thing people have been doing is making the first photo a zoomed in one that’s less gory and put a note in the description that the others are gory. It’s not mandatory but it’s an option.

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Note similar topic here:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/photos-of-dead-animals/4892

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I think dead animals and parts are fine to post. However, they are difficult for some people to deal with. Therefore, I have made a “Caution – Dead Animal” picture I use as the first photo if the remains are gruesome. There are disadvantages to that – the caution sign may be picked up as a photo of the animal, for example – but I continue to do this.

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Do we have users who can ID animals from their internal organs? Just curious.

No telling. I would think the contents of the digestive tract might be more useful than organs no longer in the original arrangement, but it surprises me sometimes what people can discern from unusual data.

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Maybe?
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8052244
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/19216314

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Oh wow. Maybe it was a hawk, although I imagine it would have to be quite large. Thanks.

Thank you all for the replies and the link to the other topic on this. I had searched before I started this topic, but apparently I wasn’t using the right words.
Here is the entrails photo: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/29995918

You’re fine.
That doesn’t seem any worse that others I’ve seen (or even submitted myself).

You could crop the flies into their own observations if your interested in insects. The detail is good enough they should be able to be IDed.

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don’t forget the wasp ;-)

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Clay and Alexis, thank you for the suggestion on cropping the insects.
Darn, it looks like the entrails are going to remain a mystery.

I wouldn’t give up 'til the Winter months. People do more IDing then from what I’ve read. Still it’s a long shot.

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Is there a way to flag/tag observations including animal death? I personally believe that they are useful but I also want to be considerate of others who may not appreciate scrolling through observations and suddenly seeing a rotting corpse. Using a cover image seems counter-intuitive to the machine learning part of the site, though it is a very courteous idea.

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If we add a Dead/Alive annotation, it’s possible we can add an account setting wherein a user can choose to not see observations marked as dead.

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That sounds like a good idea. Some people might be sensitive to animal death, or just be feeling queasy that day :)

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I think its not offending and its very interessting.
Its a trace of an animal presence, this can be usefull in many ways.
If it is a fresh cadavre its even more interessting, i have some observations on a dead bird, many animals, in this case bugs or flys were eating on it. Such bugs are of forensic use, and they come only to a scene if they smell a dead life form.
So in many cases i think its absolute interessting if you upload such animals or traces of animals.
But i agree, may some people do not like to see a dead bird eaten by bugs, a Dead/Alive annotation is maybe usefull, not only because some people get shocked if they see a dead bird but also to people who search for dead birds or the bugs eating on them to identify what they see.

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