Sometimes an organism makes the local news, but no one in the area posts an observation in iNat. For instance, the Sunshine Coast of BC, Canada, has black bears. Recently, a mother grizzly and her 3 cubs have taken up residence. They have made the evening news on all the local stations, and area Facebook groups are all abuzz about them. But there aren’t any observations in iNaturalist.
How should iNat handle that? Can I create an observation with public photos and include links to the online articles? It would be a second-hand observation, but it would be better than no observation.
Does iNat have an official position on this issue?
for your interest:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/several-grizzly-bears-spotted-on-sunshine-coast-conservation-officers-warn/
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10175236571945319&set=gm.3533437643484277&idorvanity=1164909257003806
Here is the solution from a very similar thread;
And confirmation by staff:
Hi, thanks for asking! From the iNat Help page (https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169928-what-kind-of-photos-or-sounds-should-i-attach-to-observations-):
Photos or sounds attached to observations should include evidence of the actual organism at the time of the observation, observed by the user who is uploading the observation. Media used in your iNaturalist observations should represent your own experiences, not just examples of something similar to what you saw. Please do not upload photos you found elsewhere, such as online or in a book, since they don’t represent your own experiences and are probably a violation of copyright law. Similarly, please do not upload screenshots from broadcasts of live cameras unless you are the owner of the live camera.
Those were tragic stories you related. It is common knowledge there are bears on Vancouver Island, Canada and Alaska. Local wildlife, fish and game officers are where one needs to get information on matters of that import.
It would be of interest to biologists / naturalists if there hadn’t been bear observations before, and inaturalist would be a place to share the observation of the bears for academic knowledge, which can then be leveraged by local wildlife biologists.
You shouldn’t upload any kind of media to iNat that you didn’t take yourself. Maybe we could encourage the original observer to upload them here, assuming that they’re active and making themselves publicly known on some other platform? It’s important to not stalk and harass them about it of course, but in some circumstances maybe there could be a way to reach out.