I’m going to try to describe what I see as an exploitable flaw in how some taxa are obscured. I’ll try to be as vague as possible, because I don’t want to worsen the problem by explaining how to exploit things.
This is similar to this feature request but relates specifically to hybrids. I recently found that two vulnerable species in my area hybridize, and the hybrid populations are unstable. The presence of hybrids therefore implies the presence of both parent species. The parent species are both location-obscured (at least in my state) to protect their locations, but the hybrids, as they belong to neither of the state-listed species, have their locations unobscured. This makes it very easy to find the precise locations where the parent species co-occur, by searching for the hybrids.
I’m certain the case I came across is not the only one like this. And I can see that the “hybrid formula” on the hybrid’s page lists both of the parent species, so presumably their pages are “linked” in some way? (I don’t know how any of this works on the backend). My question is, is there a systematic way to obscure hybrids when the parent species are obscured? Or is this a “fix it case-by-case” situation? If it’s something that needs to be addressed case-by-case, is there guidance related to dealing with hybrids for the folks who make the selections about what species to obscure?
In a broader sense, I can see “species that imply the presence of an obscured species” being a topic for discussion about obscuring. I don’t want to give specific examples because I don’t want to describe how to exploit the system on the forum, but if one species always lives/grows on another, then shouldn’t both be obscured if one of them is?
I know the standard answer to questions of this sort is “well if you really want the location to be a secret, just don’t post it”, but in the cases described here, it’s not the taxon being posted that’s of concern, it’s the implication of what else must be within a few inches/feet of it.
I think that a systematic approach would essentially require making all hybrids that have at least one parent taxon that is obscured also obscured. I think this would probably be challenging to implement and would also probably obscure some hybrid taxa that don’t need obscuration (ie, cultivated hybrids, etc.). I certainly think it is reasonable to obscure taxa on a case by case basis. In the scenario you described, it seems reasonable to obscure to me based on the info presented, and I don’t see any issue with flagging and explaining the situation to ask about obscuring. I probably wouldn’t wait for any future systematic solution and would just start the discussion with a flag now.
More broadly, I think
starts to get tricky to implement and would generally oppose that. For instance, I have seen taxon flags that say the equivalent of “species A is part of a community that often contains species B which is obscured. Please obscure species A” I’ve generally not obscured those species A’s because a) they don’t themselves meet iNat’s criteria for obscuring and b) this seems like a very slippery slope. That rationale could lead to obscuring large swathes of biodiversity.
I think if there is an absolute 1 to 1 correspondence between two species (obligate host/parasite, etc.) then it might be reasonable to obscure one species to protect the other. But I think it would be quite rare then for only one of the species to be threatened and not the other. But in a case where there is a orchid that always grows on a certain host, but there are lots of those host plants without the orchid, I don’t think it would be justified to obscure the host plant solely because it sometimes is host to an obscured species. So just because a protected species has an obligate relationship with another taxon would not mean that we should obscure all of the observations of the other taxon in my mind.
Or is this a “fix it case-by-case” situation? If it’s something that needs to be addressed case-by-case, is there guidance related to dealing with hybrids for the folks who make the selections about what species to obscure?
I think the way to start that discussion would be to put a flag on the taxon, right?
In a broader sense, I can see “species that imply the presence of an obscured species” being a topic for discussion about obscuring. I don’t want to give specific examples because I don’t want to describe how to exploit the system on the forum, but if one species always lives/grows on another, then shouldn’t both be obscured if one of them is?
My take would be that the implying species should probably only be obscured if the implying species is itself rare enough that knowing where one is gives you a substantial leg up on finding its super-rare and obscured associate. Otherwise, the location probably says more about where a trail is, etc. than about the location of the automatically obscured species. I can see more of a case if both species are very strongly associated with specific very small habitats that might be otherwise hard to find.
Automatically? Probably not? Many things get obscured automatically that don’t actually require it. However for species with a definite poaching/ excessive visitation concern, I’d think both hybrids and insect specialists should be obscured- for instance, with certain extremely poachable plants who A. frequently hybridize and B. have host-specific moths, the host-specific moths should probably also be obscured as well as the hybrids.
No, the names are just text. There is no “linkage” of any kind. This seems uncommon enough to me (albeit as a zoologist) that case-by-case should be sufficient.
It’s relatively informal. If people want it obscured because obscuring protects the species from poaching/damage/etc. then a curator usually obscures it. As has been suggested, best to start with a flag.