Updates to conservation statuses in progress in Canada

It still seems to be picking something else up. Perhaps if there is any ID of that subspecies. The URL returns 8 observations, but there are only 6 observations of that ssp in Canada.

2 of the records it is counting are classed as Canada Goose, but have an ID entered by at least 1 person as Dusky

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?not_in_place=6883&place_id=6712&taxon_geoprivacy=obscured&view=&taxon_id=7089&page=

Another example is it is picking up Herring Gull, for example the 1st record in the list is at the species level, has no other ID’s, yet is in this report as are several others?
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?not_in_place=6883&place_id=6712&taxon_geoprivacy=obscured&view=&taxon_id=204533&page=

The records are in 2 provinces that have a taxa conservation status listed, but both are open. Perhaps they did not get re-indexed ?

This doesn’t have anything to do with the Canada conservation statuses work.
But yes, every place has a default checklist and can have additional checklists and for some reason that goes back years the view for the default checklist (ie https://www.inaturalist.org/check_lists/7025) shows listings from all the place checklists. I agree this is confusing. Happy to discuss ideas for improving lists more on another thread

@carrieseltzer - what I think is happening is this, hopefully this is not too long or too much a guess on the technical side.

There are 2 ways that geoprivacy query could be running

  • join the observation record to the table where the conservation states and obscuring data is stored and access it from there
  • additionally based on the json of observation records, the field appears to be in the observation recod itself.

I’m guessing since it is faster, the 2nd is done.

That PEI Herring Gull record has in the json geoprivacy = obscured.

In March someone edited the Herring gull species, but we can’t see what changes they did. I suspect there is a good chance, they unobscured the status for Alberta and PEI,

However this update has apparently not properly cascaded down into the associated observation record(s) which still show the obscured marker. Whether this is an indexing failure or a cascading update failure or otherwise I’m not sure.

Sorry to be pedantic about it, but we’ve been asked to try and review what the impact of the changes is, but the queries dont seem to provide an accurate accounting of it.

So is Ontario just not done going through this process or is this really the end result of it? That’s where a large quantity of canada’s inat observations are and I’m really hoping there is more to come here rather than inat deciding to let this outside entity obscure a bunch of common species without a given reason.

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As an Ontario iNat user, I’d also like to have this clarified. If the policy remains to obscure everything with a rank of S3 or lower that degrades the quality of the data for a lot of species, in order to protect a very small fraction that would actually be threatened by having their locations revealed. It would be much more sensible to unobscure everything except those species that actually need it.

I know the Ontario CDC staff are heavy users of iNat themselves, so hopefully this can be sorted out. Looking at @charlie 's Red Spruce, I wonder if the CDC database were updated to include all the Ontario records (many of which were IDed by CDC staff), if it might not get pushed up to S4 anyways.

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Trying to clarify the open questions here.

Obscured taxon geoprivacy kicks in with any identification of a taxon with obscured taxon geoprivacy. This ensures that someone can’t just add a disagreeing coarse identification to change the observation taxon and unobscure the location, for example. This is why there are some obscured observations:

This likely means that there are some species showing up on the list due to this scenario of one maverick ID with obscured taxon geoprivacy impacting an observation.

For the Herring Gull situation:

@cmcheatle you are correct; they just needed to be re-indexed. If you ever suspect this (and it happens occasionally), select something in the DQA (I also undo it), then reload the observation. For the Herring Gull observations, all of the maps updated to show the true location, in keeping with the open taxon privacy designation. Since it was just a handful of records, I did this manually for all of them. If anyone comes across a larger batch, we can trigger a reindexing of the taxon.

This is the current end result of the approach the Ontario CDC decided to take.

In places where we have formalized relationships, I think it generally makes sense for iNaturalist to work with relevant, local organizations to take the lead on what should be obscured. However, it is far from clear how best to go about that. We’re trying it in Canada by starting with provincial-level decisions that can be changed with input from the community (and can technically be changed by curators). Most provinces opted to unobscure more species, but Ontario (which also has more than half of Canada’s observations) is still obscuring extensively.

iNat staff are not in a position to manage these kinds of decisions at scale, so it makes sense to connect the knowledgable users and curators with the CDCs to work together to refine the obscuration list.

At this time, we do not have any sophisticated infrastructure to facilitate such a dialogue or concise expression of opinion. @cmcheatle proposed a possible ‘voting’ approach that could be further developed to make the process more community-driven. I’m interested in further conversation in that thread on the topic of how to improve the infrastructure for this in the future.

For the time being, the tools we have are basically words and spreadsheets, so let’s figure out how to do the best we can with what we have to work with. Do folks think it would be helpful to start a wiki in this thread where you compile a list of species you propose should be unobscured? Or are folks already making those separately elsewhere?

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For the record, here is the email I sent for obscured birds in Ontario:

Hi Allison and others,

Please find below a list (table) of currently-obscured bird species for Ontario on iNaturalist, and how I think these statuses should be changed (I am volunteering to actually implement any changes once we get to that point).

This list includes all SAR and all species ranked S3 or below. I believe all these species are currently being obscured and that there are no additional species being obscured beyond these, although I haven’t checked completely comprehensively.

Long story short, most of the current obscuring is highly unnecessary. The first eight species I believe should remain obscured, the rest I believe should not be obscured. Please let me know any comments/concerns etc.

Thank you, Reuven Martin

S-Rank Species at Risk?
Species to remain Obscured
Very rare Southern Ontario breeding bird likely to be disturbed by birder targeting
Barn Owl S1 Y
Henslow’s Sparrow SHB Y
King Rail S2B Y
Kirtland’s Warbler S1B Y
Northern Bobwhite S1 Y
Less vulnerable than the above, but should likely still be obscured
Prothonotary Warbler S1B Y
Yellow-breasted Chat S1B Y
Disturbance is potentially a serious issue year-round at many sites
Short-eared Owl S2N,S4B Y
Species to be Un-obscured
Although very rare, most breeding sites are already widely publicised elsewhere (no additional risk from iNaturalist)
Loggerhead Shrike S2B Y
Piping Plover S1B Y
Targeted visits are unlikely to have a negative impact (due to species’ biology)
Fish Crow S1S2 N
Western Kingbird S1B N
Yellow-headed Blackbird S2B N
Extinct or extirpated species - if someone does add a historical observation there is no reason to hide it
Eskimo Curlew SHN Y
Greater Prairie-Chicken SX N
Passenger Pigeon SX N
Species is relatively widespread and many locations to see the species are already publicised and readily available (i.e. no additional risk from iNaturalist)
Acadian Flycatcher S2S3B Y
Bald Eagle S2N,S4B Y
Black Tern S3B Y
Cerulean Warbler S3B Y
Golden-winged Warbler S4B Y
Least Bittern S4B Y
Louisiana Waterthrush S3B Y
Peregrine Falcon S3B Y
Prairie Warbler S3B N
White-eyed Vireo S2B N
No risk of targeted disturbance except (maybe) at colonies, and many colony locations are easily obtained from other sources (e.g. eBird, scientific articles, SAR recovery strategies). All species are easily seen away from colonies.
American White Pelican S2B Y
Black-crowned Night-heron S3B,S3N N
Caspian Tern S3B N
Forster’s Tern S2B N
Great Black-backed Gull S2B N
Great Egret S2B N
No serious risk of targeted disturbance in migration or winter, and breeding range is almost entirely or entirely inaccessible within Ontario
American Golden-Plover S2B,S4N N
Common Eider S2B N
Golden Eagle S2B Y
Harris’s Sparrow SNA Y
Horned Grebe S1B,S4N Y
Hudsonian Godwit S3B,S4N N
King Eider SHB N
Lapland Longspur S3B N
Little Gull S1B N
Long-tailed Duck S3B N
Marbled Godwit S3B N
Pacific Loon S3B N
Parasitic Jaeger S2B N
Pectoral Sandpiper SHB,S5N N
Red Knot S1N Y
Red-necked Grebe S3B,S4N N
Red-necked Phalarope S3S4B Y
Red-throated Loon S1N,S3B N
Ross’s Goose S1B N
Rough-legged Hawk S1B,S4N N
Semipalmated Sandpiper S3B,S4N N
Short-billed Dowitcher S3B,S4N N
Wilson’s Phalarope S3B N
Whimbrel S3B,S4N N
Yellow Rail S4B Y
Now present only as a vagrant in Ontario with no conservation concerns
Bewick’s Wren SHB N
Lark Sparrow SHB N
Abundant outside of breeding season, breeding disturbance is unlikely
Canvasback S1B,S4N N
Redhead S2B,S4N N
Species is relatively common and targeted disturbance is not an issue
Bank Swallow S4B Y
Barn Swallow S4B Y
Black-billed Magpie S3? N
Bobolink S4B Y
Canada Warbler S4B Y
Chimney Swift S4B,S4N Y
Common Nighthawk S4B Y
Eastern Meadowlark S4B Y
Eastern Palm Warbler S1B N
Eastern Whip-poor-will S4B Y
Eastern Wood-pewee S4B Y
Evening Grosbeak S4B Y
Grasshopper Sparrow S4B Y
Olive-sided Flycatcher S4B Y
Purple Martin S3S4B N
Red-headed Woodpecker S4B Y
Rusty Blackbird S4B Y
Western Meadowlark S3B N
Wood Thrush S4B Y
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In places where we have formalized relationships, I think it generally makes sense for iNaturalist to work with relevant, local organizations to take the lead on what should be obscured. However, it is far from clear how best to go about that. We’re trying it in Canada by starting with provincial-level decisions that can be changed with input from the community (and can technically be changed by curators). Most provinces opted to unobscure more species, but Ontario (which also has more than half of Canada’s observations) is still obscuring extensively.

iNat staff are not in a position to manage these kinds of decisions at scale, so it makes sense to connect the knowledgable users and curators with the CDCs to work together to refine the obscuration list.

The main issue I see here is in how the changes were implemented. I think the existing auto-obscure statuses, which have been developed by curators over the years (albeit inconsistently and haphazardly) should be the starting point.

If, as seems to have been the cases for most provinces, the local organisation wants to comprehensively go through the list of rare species and make a decision for each, that’s great. But if, as in Ontario, that never happens at all, it is very frustrating that statuses generated without any human judgement then override existing statuses that did involve human judgement.

In other words, if the status of a species has not changed, the level of obscuration should not change unless some human being has explicitly made the decision that it should change.

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hi Carrie, thanks!

I think this makes sense when we are all acting in the same spirit - that we are obscuring things that may be subject to collection or harassment. But this doesn’t seem tobe what is happening here. For some reason, this local organization has just decided to obscure a bunch of globally common (and locally common) species with no collection risk whatsoever. Perhaps even worse, we are not offered any explanation, data was just hidden from people with no real warning or recourse. It’s bad now and will get much worse if the feared changes to how auto obscuring takes place ever do occur. If that ever happens Ontario’s data will be pretty much unusable to people like me, which would probably mean I’d also remove Ontario from all my ID help filters and such, because I don’t see much point in participating in identifying other people’s observations that aren’t shared with me. That isn’t why i am here.

In short, working with an organization like this is great overall, but when something absurd lke this happens, there needs to be some other sort of recourse. The community deserves a better explanation i think, someone needs to explain to this entity why this isn’t the approach iNat should take, and if they keep pushing it, should just plain be overridden. Sorry, but hiding biodiversity for no good reason isn’t what iNat should be about.

Given what has happened here, i think this is more or less pointless. Nearly all of the locally ‘rare’ but globally common species shouldn’t have been obscured. It would be easier at this point for the globally common species to just start over and find the small few that actually have reason to be obscured - ginseng, some orchids, etc.

NHIC Ontario splits Ranunculus hispidus but iNat does not. As a result, the status that is meant to apply to
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/242551-Ranunculus-hispidus-hispidus
was instead applied to
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/126368-Ranunculus-hispidus.

I have fixed the statuses of both taxa

I agree with Charlie on this. There are maybe a few dozen plants that would be legitimately threatened by publishing unobscurred location data on iNat, and hundreds that are currently obscured. It would be far less work to compile of list of plants that should be obscured than the ones that shouldn’t.

I’d be interested in learning more about how NatureServe Canada contributes to iNaturalist in general, as in this instance they seem to have been given a fair bit of control over other people’s data.

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Agreeing with most here that there are many Ontario species being “over-obscured”. However, I have just noticed that Trillium flexipes was recently removed from auto-obscure. I understand this species isn’t particularly rare if considered as a whole, however the Ontario(Canada) population is extremely small and vulnerable, and I’ve been informed by managers at one of the few populations that poaching is something they have to deal with fairly often. I feel this one that should be put back on the list for auto-obscuring.

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Yes, if we were to start over I think I’d err on the side of obscuring for orchids and other showy, collectable groups like Trillium (excluding the really common ones).

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Clearly Drooping Trillium should be obscured given it’s popularity and extreme rarity in Ontario. I have changed it.

I don’t really understand why or how it was unobscured though?

Before I just updated it, the page said

Updated by kueda on February 01, 2019

But I know for a fact that the species was obscured more recently than that. If a curator had changed it I think we would see that there (the page now says correctly that I updated it today). I can only assume that this was changed to “open” in the recent update, but something has gone terribly wrong if Honey-locust is being recommended as “obscured” but Drooping Trillium as “open”?!

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I have found at least two more exceptionally rare species that have their geoprivacy set to “open” in Ontario and no indication that they’ve been edited since February. These species are probably not exceptionally vulnerable and I’ve left them open for now in case it helps discover what’s going on.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/127690-Asclepias-hirtella
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/121976-Silphium-laciniatum

Most species that “should” be obscured do seem to be set properly.

Maybe related Snapping Turtle has been set as “open” even though you can at least make a reasonable argument that it should be obscured. This seems hard to square with stuff like Monarch being set to “obscured”. Not sure what’s going on here?

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@carrieseltzer - once this is reviewed, can you please verify that the rules now in place for changes to obscuring in Canada - if the iNat community feels something should be obscured that NatureServe has chosen not to, are curators allowed to change that to obscure it?

Obviously the opposite is not true, but how about this ?

I would hope and assume that the rules apply both ways. I’ve only made the change above because I think it’s a real data vulnerability and is almost certainly a mistake along the line somewhere rather than a real decision to have “open” geoprivacy.

I would actually hope the opposite. I can reluctantly accept not being able to overrule NatureServe decisions about what to obscure. However, if say the iNat community decided it wanted to adopt the Ebird model and obscure owls, either in Canada, or even globally even if NatureServe has decided not to, I fail to see how that is NatureServe’s business.

I’m not suggesting it is something that should be done often, merely I do not see why it should not be allowed.

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On the topic of how to handle cases where the iNat community wants to obscure something that NatureServe Canada has not selected for obscuration (especially in cases were it seems to be in error), I suggest for the time being that curators proceed with obscuration without delay, and then send an email to @allisonsw_nsc letting her know about the change and justification.

I compared the taxon geoprivacy of three species noted above for production (the live site) and gorilla (data not updated since mid-March). Asclepias hirtella and Silphium laciniatum were both open on gorilla, but Trillium flexipes was obscured. I’m looking into what happened with T. flexipes but am not sure yet. I’ll keep digging.

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why? what if they literally demand everything should be obscured? There has to be some line somewhere.