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 widelypublicisedelsewhere (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 entirelyinaccessiblewithin 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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”?!
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.
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?
@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.
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.
that’s not what i meant by accept at all. Anyhow the iNat admins do listen. No it’s not a democracy. But they care about the community and hopefully wouldn’t do something like that which would basically break their website.
I understand, I and many others have expressed we disagree with this decision. For the record I
do not object to NatureServe\s data being used as a starting point that can be reviewed and updated
do not object to NatureServe being involved in the discussions
in fact I have probably been the strongest advocate/critic that the site has not implmented regional protection lists outside North America
I do object to NatureServe being given unilateral control.
As you and others have noted this will basically render iNat useless as anything other than a personal log in Canada, especially when/if the by day obscuring is implemented.
It will be almost to not find an obscured species on any outing meaning either virtually all data will end up obscured, or users will have to explictly decide not to report obscured species, both of which seem hugely counterproductive.
I would assume / hope the site saw the feedback, but it was still implemented
My understanding is that communication process is just slow. No final decision was made. It’s frustrating to me too and I agree with you. As mentioned earlier I’m not gonna do any Id help in Ontario until it’s fixed. Maybe that’s a small thing but… I don’t choose to give free expertise when I can’t see the data in a reasonable way.
Definitely disappointing though that for all the over active obscuring some actually in trouble species like trillium cernuum were un obscured. It brings home the point that conservation status and obscuring need are very different. Many rare species especially locally rare ones have no reason to be obscured and some species that don’t yet have conservation status need to be obscured.
I wonder if there is a database by some enforcement group that has actual data on what is poached.
It’s not about punishment. I’m here for this open data biodiversity project. I’m fine with helping with some obscured data but when mass amounts are obscured I kinda don’t see the point. Hopefully they just fix the problem but…