Is there such a thing as taking too many photos of a species (in a certain area or in general)

[AdamWargon]

The Passenger Pigeon was once the most common bird in North America, with a population in the billions. In Eastern North America, they used to darken the skies. In the North Atlantic, there were millions of Great Auks. Today: zero. Would anyone complain that we had too many observations of them? We can’t predict how valuable our data will be to future researchers.

Edit: While fact-checking myself, I discovered that the post above was basically me regurgitating two previous posts, without remembering them. #TIL that doing that has a name: cryptomnesia. Here are the posts I was remembering:

First, my own post from 2025 Feb:

@AdamWargon

the passenger pigeon was once the most common birb in North America, numbering up to 5 billion. They used to darken the skies. The last one died in 1914.

I’m pretty sure no iNatters would be complaining about “too many passenger pigeon observations” uploaded in the 1800s.

That should tell you everything you need to know about uploading “common” species.

Which was me “cryptomnesia-ing?” Donna’s post from 2022:

@whateverwatcher

Thank you for posting this topic ItsMeLucy! I’ve had the same question, so you helped me. I often think about Martha, the last passenger pigeon. Passenger pigeons were once so common that they were said to ‘darken the sky’ for hours or days as they migrated in large flocks. We simply can’t know what our observations could mean in the future. (Martha is special to me because she lived out her days at my local Cincinnati Zoo. )

And here is a related post that I found, which paints a vivid picture:

@safron

I think about what the world would be like if these species never went extinct very often, and what spectacles of nature we could’ve been so lucky to observe. Imagine a flock of millions of Passenger Pigeons flying over the eastern U.S. like roaring thunderclouds that took hours, if not days to pass by. Imagine going on a vacation to Madagascar and catching a glimpse of an elephant bird running into the brush. Imagine going to Hawaii and being surrounded by hundreds of different species of birds that are found no where else on the planet, and are specialized for the environment they evolved in- without humans. The story of the O’os is one that really hits the feels button. Imagine flying to Mauritius and seeing firsthand one species that is the essence of extinction: The dodo