You know that habitat destruction is the biggest problem for wildlife, but when it comes to actually interacting with nature, do you agree with the articles above? Would you rank it like this:
Photographers would be the worst (getting pretty nature photos; not just documenting an iNat observation), because they need the prize of a photo?
Then birdwatchers (AKA twitchers) would be the second-worst, because they want that tick (checkmark) on their life list?
Then iNatters would care the most about the welfare of the animal?
There is obviously a HUGE bias in me asking this question on the iNAT FORUM. Iām sure we would see different answers on a photography forum or a birdwatching forum!
I think a lot of this comes down to the individual. I have seen photographers and birdwatchers walk away from the shot because it would require too much disturbance and I have seen Inat users kill Inverts and rip up plants in an attempt to get them IDed.
I think that the biggest risk posed by Inat users are when users are unknowingly posting taxa that are sensitive. Inat does a decent job of auto obscuring sensitive records, but it is an extremely common practice for people in the Herp community, and others, to surf Inat for rare species then use the other common records the user may have submitted around the same time to pinpoint their location. So while an Inat user may be less likely to personally damage the environment the act of recording species can allow others to do so. Those of us who are aware of this can take steps to prevent this users who are just trying to ID something with no knowledge donāt know they should take extra steps.
It is also worth noting that there are generally accepted ethical guidelines that most people who want to be respected in each of these communities are expected to follow. I think that is why articles like the guardian linked are newsworthy, because people are breaking the normally accepted code of ethics within their community.
I think the issue is we all get judged by the worst in our community. Whether youāre a birder, hunter, fisher, photographer, boater, iNat-er, or whatever else, people will remember the worst examples. Partially because the worst examples will still be present long after the perpetrator left.
An example would be when Iām out and find pistol and shot shells left scattered around: when I was a kid and my dad took my brother and I out shooting, he made us pick up every single shell that we found to dispose of them later. Problem is: because we āleft no traceā, we didnāt leave an impression on the next person who came along, the guy who left his shells did.
From a birding perspective, we used to have a pretty rare warbler nesting in a regrettably too easy to access site. People would drive in from other areas and play calls during nesting season to get the āperfect photoā. The birds donāt nest there any more, and now the nest is much harder to find. Local birders know where it is, but we keep it to ourselves. Problem is that the photographers who waited patiently without disturbance get lumped with the others; again they āleft no traceā.
Another example was a rare falcon nest in my area, we were keeping the information quiet, but a local falconer found out and climbed the tree disturbing the nest (thankfully everything was ok). Birders do not trust falconers and tend to be very careful with nest information. I know a local falconer though who acts very ethically, and purposely wonāt use iNat or eBird in order to avoid the stigma of tracking other peopleās finds.
Yeah, I donāt post falcons in the UK, or really anywhere other than US farm fields, for that exact reason. Itās a shame because I have some really beautiful photos, but I just canāt trust people not to rush out and steal chicks.
I think none of these activities are problems when done with caution about the level of disturbance, and all of them are a problem when done carelessly, it is not about the activity but about the individualās awareness and caution about their environmental impact
Sometimes it is necessary to kill an insect to ID it, this is standard practice among those who study certain insect taxa, and if done legally and in limited quantity I would not consider this in and of itself bad behavior
Frankly I doubt the differences between these activities are all that significant. And the impacts of these activities are extremely small compared to other completely normalized and extremely damaging activities: industrial agriculture, timber harvesting, suburban development, burning fossil fuels, hell even if you drive an electric car to go enjoy nature I would put that impact higher than flushing a rare bird or something. Millions of animals are killed on roadways every single year and no one seems to care.
So yeah, try to be respectful in observing nature but if you feel outraged by this behavior I would argue that outrage is better directed elsewhere. Animals disturb each other and trample plants all the time, and humans are no different. The only reason these behaviors are a problem at all is because of the absolute unmitigated carnage that our society unleashes on nature every single day in other contexts.
Maybe these news items are designed to get the little people fighting with each other, so that people donāt focus on systemic change like corporate greed
I definitely agree, I have collected many inverts for ID or museum collections. I just meant to point out that Inat users arenāt immune to having direct impacts. Perhaps inverts were a bad example, but they are what I most use Inat for so they are where my mind went. My overall point was that there are ethcial and unethical people participating in all of these activies so I donāt know that is is possible to rank them at a hobby level with any accuracy.
Normally an individualās actions wouldnāt have large impacts, but impacts are aggregate. I may not be able to stop corporations from bulldozing habitat to build a house myself, but I can choose not to disturb a bird that now has reduced habitat to the point it abandons its nest.
We canāt single handedly fix greed and exploitation, but that doesnāt mean we donāt also have personal responsibilities for what we can control.
Working in conservation with critically endangered species I have to say Iāve seen some really appalling behavior from photographers and videographers.
Rarely from the professionals, but the falling cost and proliferation of high quality cameras has opened up photography and film to an enormous number of people. In principle this is a great thing, but thereās a significant portion of that group that donāt think beyond āgetting the shotā and behave in what can only be described as an abusive manner toward their subjects, whether that be wildlife, nature and landscape shots, or people.
As far as nature-minded hobbies go, Iām sorry to say that nothing beats herpers (and especially herp collectors) in terms of destruction, and I consider myself a herper, birder, photographer, and more. I love herping but I have a generally low opinion of the overall herping community because it brings out orders of magnitude more habitat destruction than any other nature hobby I can think of. The worst a ābadā birder can do is usually to harass a few individual owls or something. A bad herper can completely wipe a species off of a mountain. There is nothing even the most egregiously irresponsible birder can do that compares to, say, crowbarring off slabs of granite to find Xantusia night lizards and permanently destroying that habitat because the offending collector is too lazy to bother finding them at night (yes, this happens).
For other nature hobbies like photography, birding, etc I find that impacts are almost always insignificant on all but very local scales, and I agree with the last comment that we should be focused more on things like clearing habitat for parking lots rather than some photographer being a jerk and disturbing a single owl.
I think that there can be bad actors in any of these situations. I often try and think of how humans would feel if animals did some of the things we humans do to themā¦Iāve seen bad behavior by a good number of people when observing animals and while an individualās behavior might be small in the scheme of things (I.e. our continuing destruction of habitat in the name of energy, development, agriculture, natural resources, etc) the cumulative effect of each personās behavior is something that is important. If someone thinks itās okay as Iām only disturbing/collecting/killing one thingā¦add up all those people who are thinking the same thing and it does make a difference. Our planet is in trouble and I feel like every little bit helps in terms of acting ethically when interacting with nature. And then there are the people out in nature who are just out for recreation who tromp thru tide pools, let their dogs run thru sensitive areas and/or leave toxic debris where animals liveā¦itās all very discouraging. Not to mention poaching, human induced wildfires, and over-fishing.
I totally agree and I am a nature photographer. I tend to avoid many nature photographers due to their bad behavior and have had run ins with some when I called them out on it.
a nameless iNatter, flipping logs for herps - not brave enough to say - hello - ethical herping? Habitat destruction?
a plant poached.
Then reports of people harassing whales - especially mother with calf. Must have the experience and get The Photo.
Worst? Whoever is building a house along the coast road between us and the next suburb. On the mountain slope, urban edge to Table Mountain National Park. First remove all vegetation and life. Then dig a neat squared off box, down to the road, dynamite the rock. Line the hole with concrete to āhold the slopeā - good luck with that. Utter devastation. No question of anything āgardenā. concrete hole (it looks worse now a year later)
Social media has indeed caused a lot of thisā¦people crave fame or ālikesā so much they will do anything to get them. As far as destroying habitat for building, it seems rampantā¦people are constantly chopping down trees just to put in pavement not counting new homes being built in sensitive areas.
I agree with these comments. Ultimately the level disturbance and overall impact on nature of an iNatter pursuing their hobby in their garden versus someone who travels to remote places to observe organisms off-trail will be different (same for birders and photographers).
Additionally, these categories are pretty fluid. If you happen to be a professional photographer specialising on bird photography, and you upload your pictures to iNat, then what are you? They are so close to each other that many, perhaps most people, who fit into one, would fit neatly into multiple.
Also I think that we need to keep in mind that disturbance ā disturbance (even though that makes my computerās grammar checker upset for some reason).
Weāve had a discussion on the forum back in May which may be relevantāHow Much Disturbance Is Okay?āand @dentalflossbay said āFoot access beats bulldozer accessā. So in addition to the disturbances we cause, we should also consider their effects. For example: A photographer with a big reach may cause more disturbance than an iNatter, but the photos they take end up becoming famous and help nature conservation, which ultimately preventsā¦
All in all, this topic proves that iNatters care for wildlife and the environment which causes us to act consciously to avoid unnecessary disturbances and harm.
I believe, if we 1) ask ourselves whether an action we take will have no, a negligible, or a positive overall effect on the environment, 2) always try to choose the least disruptive path of doing something, and 3) clean up any mess we may have made, then we neednāt put any blame on ourselves.
A few years back, I was being sent in to look for bees in a small remnant limestone prairie by the land managers for that prairie. Now, this is definitely a case of I know more now than I did then, but I tended to go to the same areas in the prairie, and someone mentioned that they could follow my trail after a few visits. So yes, I did disturb the habitat.
On the other hand, on gravel hill in a city park near me with some rare plants, the land managers did this to put in a ānice walking pathā:
So close to nature that they donāt even have to touch it anymoreā¦ :/
Honestly, I donāt know why stuff like this is even still allowed. Itās just sad
As an iNatter you can avoid attracting a crowd to a rare thing - just donāt upload it the same day or nesting season etc - for iNat records uploading this 2 years after the event is fine. One could even unobscure old sightings - there is no risk in having a rhino from 2004 or so, but these things are still obscured.
Disturbance is twofold - what you do getting this observation and what you do to attract other people to the sighting.
iNatters can also have an impact - some put up moths lights, some freeze insects - some collect and kill without any intention to do research - some rear larvae to adults and release - some play bird calls from apps - some pick up protected plants ā¦ and almost all of them trample the vegetation or contribute to pollution and global warming when travelling for inatting which is also an impact if you drive your 4x4 car every weekend 100 km to a place for hiking/iNatting/photographing/watching or even goes overseas once a year for iNatting. Honestly: who does only walk or cycle or use green public transport in order to get iNat records?
The impacts of travelling and the associated infrastructures (and behaviors) are usually worse than the disturbance of an individual specimen.
