# Is iNat Actually Helping Scientists?

**URL:** <https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/is-inat-actually-helping-scientists/79128>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [May 18, 2026, 12:41pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/is-inat-actually-helping-scientists/79128 "2026-05-18T12:41:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 19

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**Author:** ![upupa-epops](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/upupa-epops/32/1972_2.png) [@upupa-epops](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/upupa-epops)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2026, 5:02pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/is-inat-actually-helping-scientists/79128/19 "2026-05-18T17:02:03Z")

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In Ontario the sensitive herp species are completely private, so in filters you can find that the observations of them are in Ontario but if you click on them it tells you nothing about where they were. Only the people in charge of iNaturalist Canada and the government species at risk project (and maybe some other projects) can see any location information.

Herpers seem to have the [strongest opinions](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/lightly-obscure-all-records-on-inaturalist/6959/13) against iNat (maybe a result of a combination of the sensitivity of their targets and the type of personality that gets into herps) but there are [some plant species](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/obscuring-observations-of-species-at-risk-of-poaching/1308) that seem to have very dedicated poachers as well.

> [@drowningcreek](#):
>
> Obscured data does not always keep the obscured species within the general county it was located.

The way that the location is randomized is fairly intuitive (it goes to a random location within a rectangle around the original location) but people who have never used the platform before are often confused by it. “Why is it in the ocean/the wrong county/the wrong habitat?” It’s just a random location in the rectangle… making it obvious which county it’s in would help people narrow down the actual location.

> [@drowningcreek](#):
>
> Do you have thoughts on correcting this?

You can find some previous discussions and feature requests related to this linked here: [https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/danger-of-locations-on-inaturalist/6602/23](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/danger-of-locations-on-inaturalist/6602/23)

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