Should dangerous animal observations really be allowed on iNaturalist for every user? I mean, it’s dangerous, it’s risky, and it really isn’t a good idea. I’m talking about dangerous animals such as great whites, tigers, and blue-ringed octopuses. Interaction with animals like that should only be done when necessary or by experts.
Also, if it should be allowed, is it recommended or not?
I looked up the Great White Shark. There are just under 1.2k observations, and scrolling through the first page, they appeared to be dead on a beach, bones, observed from a boat, or observed from behind some kind of window. None of those observations were obviously dangerous to the observer.
Are you seeing observations where it looked like the observer was in danger? Or is this more of a hypothetical?
People can (and probably will) take unnecessary risks to photograph anything. I like to go to bogs and look for bog plants. There are bogs where if you wander off the boardwalk, you could get in serious trouble. (This trouble is easily avoided by not doing that.) Should we allow observations of bog plants? Where do you draw the line?
I think we are each responsible for our own safety. It’s not as if iNat is telling people which animals to photograph or how close to get.
Yes, of course they should be allowed. If you’re out looking for animals (or, for that matter plants) you realize that you might encounter one that can hurt you. Usually, these are minor injuries - stings, insect bites, fish spines, crab pinches and the like. That’s just part of a day’s work. Very few people are unaware that large animals (many mammals, some birds, some reptiles, some fish) should not be closely approached both because they could be dangerous and because they should be left alone to go about their own business.
Technically speaking, sharks, tigers and octopuses are not that dangerous to humans because the majority of people rarely encounter them in the field. In terms of deadliness, mosquitoes are by far the most dangerous group, so much so that the number of yearly deaths caused by all other animals combined is still not even half of the number of deaths caused by mosquitoes. Other ‘dangerous’ animals are ticks, assassin bugs, snakes and domestic dogs. Following your reasoning, should we then ban all of those animals from iNaturalist in risky regions for all users because of the potentially dangerous interaction with them? I understand your concern, but that is not at all what iNaturalist is about. Thinking about the potential risks when going out to observe certain animals is on the user, not on iNaturalist.
Allowed by whom?
To whom?
According to whom?
The qualifications of which will be decided by whom?
While none of these creatures are really near me, if I saw one of the many local animals considered dangerous near me, I would exercise precaution for the animal more than for me, and only if possible, photograph it. I have seen a huolpoch, which is one of the local venomous snakes, actually at some meters distance, however I did not photograph it as I did not want to take my eye off it as it moved especially as anti-venom is not always available.
It should be allowed - but it is up to users not be foolish. Leaving a vehicle in Africa to get close to a termite heap and not see the Black Mamba behind it, is an accident. Leaving a vehicle to get close to hippo, is foolish. If you are in your local area, you should be prepared with some local knowledge before venturing into the wild and if you are a tourist, get educated first and take precautions against the little critters like ticks, stinging flies and mosquitoes.
This is a question of hazard vs risk. A great white shark in a tank in an aquarium is a hazard, but it presents virtually no zero risk to the visitors, because it’s contained and isolated from them. Similarly, any live dangerous animal photographed for iNat presents a hazard, but that doesn’t mean the observer is at any appreciable risk when taking their pictures. Photographing a dangerous shark from a professional diving cage, a lion from a tour bus, or a venomous octopus that an expert placed into a photo box presents near zero risk. It’s usually impossible to tell just from the photos whether the photographer was at any risk.
In any case, the most dangerous thing we do when iNatting is usually driving to the location we’ll be visiting. The risk of putting ourselves in a metal box hurling 50+mph past a hundred other moving boxes is objectively more dangerous than having a line of sight on most any “dangerous” animal.
I am far more likely to be bitten by a terciopelo while walking my dog than I am while taking a photo. It is easily the most dangerous species in my country. Personally, I would not be very enthusiastic about someone telling me what I can and cannot take a picture of.
I’m not sure it’s really viable to go through every single observation of a potentially dangerous species and assess whether or not the person making it has the expertise (or distance) in which to do so. Particularly given the number of venomous snakes that, though they can be dangerous if stepped on, are simply not a problem at a distance. Like this cottonmouth: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/193832172
If I had stood on this cottonmouth, it would probably have bitten me, and then I’d have to go to the hospital. And I did almost stand on it. I’m not any kind of venomous snake expert, so I shouldn’t go up to (medically significant) venomous snakes on purpose- but I got close to this one by accident, not having seen it due to it being a species that survives partly by camouflaging itself, and then I took this picture only once we were a safe distance apart. So I got too close to it for reasons unrelated to the observation, and the actual observation is from not being too close.
Nobody is going to seriously tell you that it’s recommended for INaturalist users to deliberately approach dangerous animals in order to get better photos. But “dangerous animal” is relative, assessing every INat user’s qualifications is nigh-impossible for several reasons, and trawling through every single observation to find every one that was taken in a potentially dangerous situation would be an incredible amount of work.
Besides- if someone is an idiot and goes up to a bear looking for a better INaturalist photo, well, that’s not exactly on INaturalist. INat didn’t say “hey, you should go up to a bear, it’s totally safe”, and if someone is lacking enough in common sense to go up to a bear for an INat photo, they’re more than likely lacking in common sense enough to go up to a bear for a “show it to my friends” photo. People with no common sense about dangerous animals don’t need INat to make bad decisions- look at the number of people who get hurt in Yellowstone every year because they wanted a vacation photo with a bison.
(Not to mention that any small mammal and many other animals can theoretically be dangerous if it’s carrying the right/wrong disease, or in the right/wrong circumstances- do we ban raccoon photos for the possibility of rabies? Birds for the possibility of avian flu? Mosquitoes for the assortment of diseases they carry? Bees because some people are fatally allergic and not everyone who is will know until too late? If we decide some of those are only okay from a safe distance, how do we decide what a safe distance is, and what if the photo was taken by a zoom lens and we can’t tell how far away the person is? Do we ask everybody with a cropped raccoon or bird photo how close they were?)
I appreciate your concern for people’s safety, but trying to limit this would be impossible to enforce, and would be trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist in any significant amount.
I took many photos of poison ivy and bees, and I haven’t gotten hurt
The only realistic way to implement this would be to outright ban entire classes of organism from being posted.
For example, Great Whites are pretty dangerous under the right (or wrong) circumstances, but whale sharks are filter feeders, and are completely uninterested in us. https://www.sharksider.com/10-least-dangerous-sharks/#lwptoc1 (This was just a quick search for harmless shark, I am not even close to qualified to give actual advice on sharks). The cv doesn’t make perfect IDs though, it just provides options, so it couldn’t just not allow specific species, it would have to not allow any sharks. Then what about things that MIGHT be sharks? So I guess that leaves out all fish.
Having some species only allowed to experts would first require a vetting process to verify their qualifications (which would be what?), then a vetting process for each observation before being uploaded for public viewing. That would nullify the entire purpose of iNat’s existence as a citizen scienxe platform.
Snakes probably would have been an easier example, say black mamba vs rat snake, but I already wrote the shark one.
Agreed.
Back in the day, when The Doctor was still in patient care as The Medic, the ER could count on at least one person being airlifted in each summer because they tried to do something stupid with wildlife in the high country. Possibly the most memorable one was the guy who picked up the poor little lost bear cub, to try and help it find its mama. Suffice it to say that
- Mama was right nearby
- she was not convinced of the gent’s altruistic motivation, and
- he was self-aware enough to realize how lucky he was to be alive (including saying to D “that was really stupid, wasn’t it?”).
The worst ones were the kids who were flown in because their parents tried to give them a ride on the bear / bison / bighorn sheep / deer. So yeah; this phenomenon well predates both iNat and any form of social media beyond personal blogs or LiveJournal.
Also, ‘dangerous animal’ is a term with an awfully broad definition. People don’t think of skunks as dangerous, but getting sprayed by one is the equivalent of getting tear-gassed, up to and including the temporary blindness. I’ve had past bad reactions to yellowjacket venom, but I still photograph bees. If anything, I think that the average iNatter is probably better about risk assessment and respect for the organisms* on the other side of the camera lens.
*(because plants can be dangerous, too, Poison hemlock, anyone?)
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