Ive seen alot of arguments as to weather the Scotish reindeer herd should be marked as wild or not. Most of which stem from four main factors.
They are of the domestic subspecies. This is not entirely true as this herd is a blend of multiple subspecies that have hybridised for so many generations subspecies identification is no longer possible. This also implies no feral domestic animal can be marked as wild either.
2 + 3.They are owned by a charity and are livestock. Firstly, most of the Scandinavian herds are freerange livestock yet are still listed as wild. Secondly the Scottish reindeer herd is not considered livestock by the government as they do not have ear tags or any other livestock traits.
They are fed. Does feeding garden birds make them claptive? Besides, they are only fed when deemed no longer fit for the wild or during medical checks (dont to mant wild animals).
I was simply wondering how to go about this. I believe they shoud he considered wild though im up for debate.
Those descriptions make them sound like domestic animals. Certainly, tourists would not be encouraged to wander around freely among herds of wild caribou or other large animals [such as elk or pronghorns] in North America.
Certainly the herd itself was brought there by humans intentionally. Since they are still under serious human care (feeding, veterinary care) and on an estate in at least one location, Iâd say that they fall more on the side of captive to me.
One relevant question would be - can the reindeer leave a designated area, and, if they do, are they brought back? If so, then I might err on the side of captive.
It seems like in many cases, the reindeer are somewhat enclosed:
Most grazing animals are loosely domesticated, and the transition from domestic to feral isnât really noticable. This is particularly noticable in broadscale rangelands such as Australia or the Americas. There are large numbers of feral cattle in Australia that havenât been handled by humans for generations, but for a long time the Australian Museum didnât recognise the existence of feral cattle because it was so hard to define when a beast became feral. Horses are expected to be confined, saddled, subject to tooth and hoof work and so forth, so itâs much easier to define a feral horse. With rangeland cattle, as soon as a fence goes down they are all technically feral with no change in behaviour or handling.
The fact that tourist are encouraged wander freely amongst the animals doesnât tell us much about wild status. Tourists are encouraged to wander amongst and feed feral pigeons and ducks worldwide. The birds are still wild, even if they are acclimated to humans.
I think the important distinction is whether the animals are dependant in humans. If humans magically vanished tomorrow, would the animals suffer any significant decline in population numbers? Do they rely on humans for their food and water? This is particularly important if the animals are constrained by fences. Do they need people to open gates to take them to new pasture? DO they need people to keep troughs filled or operate pumps? As a rough rule of thumb, if more than 25% of the population would die within 12 months of people vanished, then they are not wild, they are a managed domestic herd.
As Iâve said before the formal difference between a wild animal and a captive one is if thereâs an owner.
If theyâre owned by a charity, not just existing on land which is owned by a charity, and the charity is legally responsible for the reindeerâs well-being and any damage they may cause, then theyâre captive.
All Scandinavian reindeer outside the Norwegian wild reindeer reservations should IMO also be marked as domesticated - theyâre no more wild than your neighborâs cat.
The short of it is that whether they have an owner does not define captivity, rather whether they can fend for themselves in the absence of human management.
There is no formal difference between a wild animal and a captive one. There are various legal definitions, but it varies between jurisdictions. If you are interested, do a search on the term âferae naturaeâ to see how complicated this gets, and how completely lacking any formal difference is between a wild animal and a captive one. A wild caught bear may be owned, but it remains wild animal. All swans in England are owned by the King, but nonetheless remain wild swans. A domestic dog that has strayed after its ownerâs death is not owned, but is not in any sense a wild dog. A domestic goldfish that has been flushed down the toilet is not owned, but it is not a wild carp. And so on and so forth.
The point about responsibility is a little more meaningful, however it is still muddled, and once again, this varies greatly between jurisdictions. The obvious counterpoint is that in many jurisdictions worldwide, governments are responsible for the damage caused by wild animals, such as wolves or leopards, and are required to pay compensation and take reasonable steps to control the animals. Nonetheless those are explicitly wild animals.
In Australia, there is legislation that specifically assigns responsibility for the conservation and management of a broad range of species of animals and plants, all of which remain indisputably wild despite being the responsibility of various government departments.
The point about responsibility for welfare probably comes closest to the mark, however once again, there are so many counter examples that itâs not all that enlightening. In most jurisdictions, if I capture a wild animal for research purposes, I immediately become responsible for the welfare of that animal, and commit a crime if I fail to provide for it. Nonetheless, that animal remains wild. I have helped transport wild animals from isolated locations into extremely large predator free enclosures. Those animals were wild when they were captured, and they remain wild while in the enclosure. The sole point of the enclosure is to exclude exotic predators. The animals are free to roam over area far larger than any area they would ever naturally travel, but they re still ultimately confined by fences, yet nonetheless wild. I was responsible for the welfare of the animal while it was being transported, but it never ceased being a wild animal
I agree these reindeer are probably no more wild then my neighbourâs cat. My neighbourâs cat is feral. Sure, she feeds it, and has occasionally taken it to the vet, but itâs very much a wild animal. Itâs not a stray, itâs a feral animal and probably hasnât had any owned ancestors for centuries.
The problem is that wild/not wild is a human concept, and a poorly defined one. The organisms themselves donât know whether they are wild or not, and they donât care. They donât care if they are owned, they donât care if they re some humanâs responsibility. The genetics and behaviour donât change in response to any of those concepts. As a result there canât be any clear distinction between a wild and a not-wild animal. One blends seamlessly into the other via an infinite cline.
Itâs still muddled - millions of cattle in Africa and India are owned and milked on a daily basis, but would continue to thrive in the absence of their human owners. Are they wild, or not? The first pigs brought to New Zealand were certainly fully domestic domesticated animals, but they thrived without human management. Were they wild on board the ship? Did they became wild as soon as they touched the shore? Or did they only become wild in in the first generation born on the island?
If an organism exists on its ancestral island, has never left that island, never been owned by a human, but is only able to exist because of a rigorous program of shooting feral cats, is that animal wild? It would certainly become extinct in the absence of human management, yet it lives as its ancestors had lived for millions of years before humans were even aware of it existence. How does it differ from the wild animals that lived there before humans introduced cats?
As unclear as it is, I still think this is the most important point in defining wild - however itâs a positive criterion, not an exclusionary one. If a population doesnât need people to survive, itâs certainly wild. However some populations do need people to survive, and are still wild.
Iâm inclined to work off a decision tree. For example:
1 - Does the population need humans to survive?
No - Wild
Yes - 2
2 - Is the population in a locale where it would reasonably have been found been found without human intervention?
No â Not wild
Yes â 3
3 â Is the human intervention restricted to correcting or mitigating anthropogenic changes â eg controlling introduced species, mitigating climate change, controlling anthropogenic fires?
No â 4
Yes â Wild
4 â Does the appearance and behaviour of the population differ from a wild population
Interesting discussion. I have some local knowledge to contribute, Tilly Smith, the long term manager of the herd, having an adjacent farm to me. Members of the herd certainly can move away from where they were put. Tilly told me about members a group which they had brought back from overwintering on the Hills of Cromdale to the Cairngorm plateau, which then turned up back on the Cromdales under their own steam, a distance of 25km as the crow flies.
There are no restrictions, above all the farm fence lines, on where the reindeer go on the Cromdales, at least, but they tend to stick to a contiguous high area where the reindeer moss is abundant.
So far as I know, no Cairngorm reindeer have split off from the herd and bred âin the wildâ at some distant location, and I suspect they would be rounded up pretty quickly if they did.
As to whether such animals should be recordable, Iâd say it depends what information its considered desirable for iNaturalist to gather. Iâm interested in ecological interactions. Iâd anticipate that the reindeer may have an effect on the local ecology, and it might be interesting in time to see whether there are differences developing between areas where the reindeer go, and where they donât (if this hasnât been done already). But you could say the same for sheep on rough grazing, or feral cats. If you really wanted to study what impact the reindeer are having it would be relatively easy to match up species diversity from recording schemes such as iNaturalst, and data from the herd managersd, so why I would be personally interested if reindeer encounters were recordable on iNaturalist but I wouldnât âdie in a ditchâ for it!
Theres is alot of reaserch on the impact of the Cairngorm reindeer. They are a native species, its just wrong to say otherwise, thus their return should be studied (which it is). Alot of this reaserch uses inaturalist to estimate the range of the reindeer. Whilst the charity does ofcourse manage their population they dont always know how far they travel.
Yes, without human intervention they would have never died out in the first place.
Are they breeding on there own? Iâm no expert, but I always thought that if the population was breeding without human guidance, it is wild, like this obs of a rabbit: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/190214480. I think this sound similar to this situation.
Youâre confusing two concepts: domesticated vs wild and captive vs wild. Youâre not legally responsible if a badger living on your land bites someone, because itâs a wild animal. If your pet badger bites someone, then you are legally responsible as it is not a wild animal, but captive, your property, even though it is not domesticated. If a feral poodle bites someone on your land, you are not legally responsible, as the poodle is wild, not your property, even though it is domesticated.
Different concepts of âwildâ. The relevant concept for iNaturalist is wild vs captive, not wild vs domesticated, as the relevant issue is if the organism is outside of its distribution, e.g. in a zoo, botanical garden, or aquarium.
In the case of these reindeer, theyâre both captive and domesticated.
As @papernautilus exclaimed, the fact that the center encourages humans to come up close and pet the animals is already a sign of domestication. Additionally, the primary stock for these animals are domestic reindeer from Scandinavia, which is evident by looking at their phenotype. While they may not be in an enclosure and are free-ranging, this still counts as captive because they are routinely fed (from the herdâs website, talking about one of its staff: âAlex is Alan and Tillyâs son, and can turn his hand to herding reindeer, fixing anything and carrying vast amounts of feed onto the hill. He is dad to Hamish and Marley, the first of the next generation of Scottish reindeer herders.â) @mikenoren put it best, they are both captive and domesticated. While I would love to call them wild and this a reintroduction, it simply isnât.
Umm, you are the one who said that âthe formal difference between a wild animal and a captive one is if thereâs an ownerâ. We were trying to help you with that confusion.
Which simply ignores all the evidence presented that shows that exactly the opposite is true. People and organisations are legally responsible for wild animals all over the world. Stating, yet again, that they arenât responsible appears to wilfully ignoring the evidence.
Once again, do a simple Google search on âferae naturaeâ to see numerous instances from courts around the world that have found exactly the opposite to be true. If your pet badger bites someone, the court will almost certainly found that it is both wild and captive.
Your confusion seems to stem from holding a false dichotomy. You appear to believe that an animal must be either captive or wild. Thatâs not true. The world is full of captive wild animals. At this time of year. My little group alone has thousands of captive wild animals on any given day in traps and nets.
A house mouse that I caught in a pitfall last night was:
Wild.
Captive.
Feral.
Domestic.
Controlled.
My responsibility.
Unowned.
And it was all of those things all at the exact same time
Once again, this is not true. In most jusridictions, the landholder has a property right to, ownership of and is responsible for the management of, feral animals on their land. If a landowner knows that there is a potentially dangerous animal on their land and fails to take reasonable steps to mitigate that, they will be and is held responsible for the damage they cause.
It varies greatly with jurisdiction, but generally speaking, the only way you could not be held responsible if feral poodle bites someone on your land is if you could establish that the victim was as able to foresee the attack as you were or you had taken reasonable steps to mitigate the risk or you could establish that you had done nothing at all that made the animal more likely to be in your land.
Think about this for a second. You are saying that if I knowingly had a pack of 20 savage feral dogs on my land, and my neighbours had cautioned me about same, I would have no case to answer if those dogs killed my neighbourâs livestock? Of course that isnât true, and 30 seconds on Google will find case law in multiple jurisdictions finding the same. I am responsible for controlling feral animals on my land. If I fail to do so, I will be held accountable by the courts.
Once again, you seem to be labouring under a false dichotomy, this time that an animal must be either âdomesticated and someoneâs responsibilityâ, or âwild and no oneâs responsibilityâ. Of course that isnât true at all. I canât let feral pigeons breed in my roof and spread lice to my neighbours apartment. Both the lice and the pigeons are wild animals. The pigeons are feral and wild, the lice are purely wild. Both are also unambiguously my responsibility, under both legislation and common law.
Once again, you appear to be operating through a series of false dichotomies
The first is that a wild animal can never be outside its natural distribution, and that a captive animal can never be within its natural distribution. Of course this isnât in any way correct, as pointed out already multiple times with examples.
The second is that all captive animals must have an owner. That isnât true. I donât own the animals that I capture. I am legally responsible for them, but I would be committing several serious crimes if I claimed ownership of them.
The third is that if only captive animals have owners. As already explained at length, this simply isnât true. Many, probably most wild animals are legally owned, and many feral domestic animals are unowned.
You seem to be implying that an animal can somehow be outside its own distribution. An animalâs distribution is where it is found. It can never be outside that distribution.
You also seem to be implying that âoutside of its distributionâ is of paramount importance to iNaturalist. Does that have any basis that I can read somewhere? Because if not, it appears to be completely circular - these reindeer arenât wild because they are âoutside their distributionâ , and we know they are outside their distribution because they are not wild.
The reason you think an animal can be both captive and wild at the same time is because youâre conflating two conflicting concepts of âwildâ. This is the cause of your confusion. Only one of the concepts is interesting to iNaturalist, which is why feral domestic cats can get research grade IDs but captive domestic cats get casual IDs.
Distribution is of paramount importance to iNaturalist. Thatâs why it differentiates between wild and captive organisms at all.
And yes, the lions at the zoo and the clownfish in my aquarium are outside the distribution of their species.
Yes, letâs please keep the conversation focused on the specific situation (specific Scottish reindeer herd) and whether it is considered wild/not wild on iNaturalist where specific definitions for these terms exist that differ from how they may be used in other contexts, including legal ones.
In my opinion, none of the three points brought up in the original post have much bearing on whether iNat should consider these Captive or Wild.
-âThey are of the domestic subspeciesâ An escaped animal of a domestic subspecies is still Wild, and an un-domesticated animal that someone catches and transports is still Captive, so which subspecies they belong to is a moot point
-âthe Scottish reindeer herd is not considered livestock by the government as they do not have ear tags or any other livestock traitsâ Whether the government classifies something as âlivestockâ or not is not relevant to how itâs reported on iNat. The iNat help page explicitly lists âan escaped or released petâ as being Wild. Iâd say this extends to livestock as well- an escaped pig from a farm wandering around the woods is both unambiguously âlivestockâ according to the government and unambiguously âWildâ according to iNat.
-âThey are fedâ This doesnât seem like a reason for anything⌠loads of livestock are free-range, and loads of wild animals get fed by people.
Also
âI think the important distinction is whether the animals are dependent on humans. If humans magically vanished tomorrow, would the animals suffer any significant decline in population numbers? Do they rely on humans for their food and water?â
I donât think this is relevant either. If humans vanished tomorrow, nearly all species on the planet would substantially change in numbers as a response. Species that weâve driven nearly to extinction and are now attempting to actively protect from extinction, species that thrive in human cities and rely on human scraps, parasitic species that use humans as a host, species that grow well on agricultural lands, etc. I bet free range cattle would still be going strong years after a human-pocalypse, but theyâre certainly not Wild because of that. Critically endangered species that weâre desperately trying to protect the last few individuals of would probably not survive without us at this point, but that doesnât make them Captive.
Of course we could all write a book on our opinions of what âWildâ means to us, what it means in the law, what it means for conservation, all the thousands of âedge casesâ that show how fuzzy the line can be, etc. But iNatâs help page says that for our purposes on the website, "Checking captive / cultivated means that the observation is of an organism that exists in the time and place it was observed because humans intended it to be then and there.
For iNat purposes, itâs all about intent. The same animal in the same place with the same legal status that received the same amount of care from humans and is equally reliant on humans for food is âCaptiveâ if someone put it there intentionally, and âWildâ if it got there on its own. And this applies to the organism itself, not the species in general, not the population at large. Is that reindeer right there currently free to go wherever it wants in the world, or do humans keep it contained by some artificial means (fences, seasonal roundups, walls, actively returning escapees, etc.)? Have people made an active effort to deliberately put this particular animal here? Obviously we have to be sensible about what we mean by âhereâ- it would be silly to say âI caught a shark and brought it to Kansas and put it in a cornfield but it flopped three feet to the right of where I put it so now itâs wildâ.
The quotes @cthawley found above are the most relevant information in this thread, IMO:
These animals are only free to range within a small area designated by humans, and they were put there by humans after their last medial checkups. That makes them captive, by the definition given for iNat purposes. If some of the herd is abandoned by the caregivers and left to wander off wherever it wants to go, never to be rounded up again, at that point there would be an argument to be made for them being Wild. Same with wild horses, free range cattle, etc. The Wild designation for âan escaped or released petâ should apply on those cases.