I hope this does not devolve into a revisit of the past discussions over whether species obscurations should or should not take place, because that’s not the aim.
I was checking to see if species that are protected locally are still obscured, and I found that they are not. This seems like it may be an oversight. There are many species that are LC globally, but are Near Threatened up to Endangered regionally (by country), especially in areas regions where poaching is common.
It seems that if we are going to be obscuring protected species there should be some consideration given to national status as well.
An example of this is the Golden Birdwing (Troides aeacus), a type of butterfly, in Vietnam. This is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, but it is considered a CITES II species is included in the Red Data Book of Vietnam (periodic publication that lists protected species in the country).
None of the observations of Troides aceacus in Vietnam are obscured, even though nationally it’s considered a protected species.
There are a number of other species like this not only for Vietnam, but for many other places as well, particularity in SE Asia.
I think it’s worth considering whether an effort should be made to initiate country-by-country observation obscurations based on whether a species is protected nationally, and not just relying on groups like the IUCN to determine status.
I’m really not trying to start a pros-and-cons of observation obscurations in genral discussion, those have been had numerous times in the past, but I think there is some value in discussion how we support national protection efforts, not just international ones.