Column E on the spreadsheet shows it’ll be the status quo - only obscured in Nova Scotia.
Oops, this is just me struggling to interpret forms, sorry :)
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What is the basis for obscuring Asplenium scolopendrium in Ontario ?
It is relatively common in its range, I can’t imagine it is subject to collecting pressures and there are far less common ferns being set to open in the province. What about this species makes it be one of only 2 obscured ferns in the province ? Just looking toi understand the approach and consistency being applied.
There are columns for adding comments on the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zZ5W_R1VHtYq2h7KBN0BNVEJ2FXEw2mUVrLT8qRhTeA/edit#gid=0
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Thank you for the note on that one. I looked back on the reasoning for this and it was one that was thought to be at a potential risk of collection. I’ve just added a comment on the spreadsheet for us to take a second look at. The original rationale is that it’s special concern, but limited to a small geographic area. The COSEWIC status report lists collection as a threat, but also notes it as negligible impact.
Thank you both. Sorry if that form isn’t clear enough. Sounds like you’ve got it sorted now though, despite that.
Yes it was a request by Atlantic CDC to keep it obscured. Another rationale is that is’ more uncommon in NS than in ON and QC. It’s listed as Critically Imperilled (S1) - there are very few trees to begin with so any poaching could be problematic.
Thanks for the feedback so far. I’d been in the field so wasn’t able to get back to some of these comments until now. We’re able to post this to all iNat users this week and get an email out to people affiliated with iNat.ca. We’ll give two weeks for feedback from the community, then work through comments and post a final list for everyone, along with three weeks to make changes to their observations if they would like.
Based on these timelines, we’re planning to give the community until Sept 6th to comment on the current list. So if there are additional thoughts from anyone, please feel free to put them into the comment columns of the online document by then.
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Any updates on when the new list will be adapted? We’re in the process of updating the Ontario Butterfly Atlas with iNat data from 2020 (soon to be followed by data from 2021), and we’d have a lot more usable data if the new species list were in effect.
@jpage_cwf Spotted turtle is on your sensitive species list for ON and QC, but it’s currently set for open geoprivacy in QC (it’s set to private in ON). Is QC going to be updated soon?
Yikes, thanks @jwidness I’m fairly certain spotted turtles were previously obscured, I wonder if a curator had changed that at some point without us knowing. I’ve gone in to the taxon page and made the change so that it’s covered until the bulk update takes place. Up until just a few weeks ago, the IUCN status would override a provincial or country status so regardless of its status in QC, it was still obscured. iNat.org recently made a change to allow the provincial and country status take precedence. So at least it was hidden by the IUCN status previously. The change now means that there is alignment in Canada with what needs to be hidden, rather than the international status over obscuring species. It also means we need to keep an eye on these kinds of situations where a species gets changed without our knowing.
And yes updates are coming soon. We’re just putting the finishing touches on our communications and we’re set to announce today or tomorrow. I’ll draft another post about that.
Thanks again!
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Yes, updates are coming soon. We’re nearly set to announce that changes are coming and give people time to review their own observations before they take effect. That will happen this week, and provide just over three weeks before the changes are started - but the changes may take a week or two to be fully implemented. To be on the safe side, I’d say towards the end of December, these the changes will be fully implemented.
In addition to a post that I’ll put out announcing changes, I can put out a post to everyone here when they’re done.
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We now have an updated list for taxon Geoprivacy! Again, thank you to everyone who has helped guide us along this bumpy road. It was obvious we didn’t get it right the first time so this is a much improved list, thanks to everyone who participated.
The plan is to start implementation on December 6th, which may take a couple of weeks to complete, so it won’t be an overnight change. This gives nearly four weeks for users to update their observations if they deem it necessary.
We have a page dedicated to geoprivacy in the help section of iNaturalist.ca that explains the approach, intention, links to the list, how to update geoprivacy of your observations and how to opt out of sharing your manually obscured observations for those who wish to do so.
A couple of things to note:
- if a species is on the STPH list, this also all covers all descendants (i.e. sub-species, varities, etc.).
- There is a second sheet in the Google Doc called Obscured to Open. This captures the species that will be opened as a result of changes. There are some subtleties to this, in that a species may be opening in one province, but staying obscured in another (due to different status or threats). Tied in with the update is that the NatureServe Ranks are updating for some species - in come cases it affected how the geoprivacy appeared, but with over 5000 speicies, we weren’t able to manually check each one. If it’s unclear, the STPH list the governing document, so if it’s on that list for that province, then it will be obscured.
Lastly, I’m not sure if it is well known, but there is an update to iNaturalist that the national and provincial taxon geoprivacy now takes precedence over the IUCN ranking. Meaning that within Canada, the STPH list will become the only species to which taxon geoprivacy applies. This brings the two obscuring levels into alignment which is something people had expressed early on in this forum thread.
@carrieseltzer , @allisonsw_nsc , please chime in if I missed anything.
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People in Quebec are poaching or harassing Black Maples? maybe i already asked about that one and there was a good reason, but… i definitely am confused by that one. Most people can’t even tell them apart from the ubiquitous sugar maples.
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Good point on that one and I tend to agree. We’d discussed Black Maple when looking at feedback. I’ll circle back on it and clarify. Thanks!
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It is very disappointing that - at this final stage - Great Gray Owl and Northern Hawk Owl have been put back on the obscure list…and with Canada-wide application. This is not an evidence-based decision, it is a political decision.
I’ll just say, one more time: I will be happy to change my mind on obscuring GGOW and NHOW observations in my region as soon as I see credible scientific evidence proving a direct causal link between species-wide population declines for those species in the Districts of Kenora and Rainy River in Northwestern Ontario and public disclosure of sighting locations on citizen science websites like iNaturalist. I’ve been waiting for many years for that evidence and I will continue to have a very long wait for it.
So, if some folks imagine species geo-privacy is required to control the ruthless packs of owl-harassing photographers out here - in one of the largest, least-populated and least-accessible wilderness regions on the continent - the inescapable, reality-based narrative is this:
Just my .02, thank you for reading.
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Thanks and I appreciate your .02! You’re right that the over-observing pressure in northwestern Ontario is minimal to zero. It’s a beautiful place, by the way. I’ve spent a bunch of time in the Kenora District, so appreciate the remoteness that you speak of. The difficulty is that we are not able to set the obscured location to a level more precise than the provincial boundary. So in this case we have to obscure for all of Ontario or none of it. This opens it up to pressures where observations have been made in Toronto, Ottawa and other more densely populated areas. The same applies to situations in other provinces, hence the Canada-wide obscuring. So despite the minimal pressures in remote areas, opening up some species would have repercussions elsewhere.
The decision was definitely not political, as we had requests to obscure all owls in all of Canada and decided not to go that route. With owls, we also tried as much as possible to be consistent with eBird.
I hope this helps with the explanation and lays out why the decision was made.
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Thank you for responding. The reason I left eBird four years ago was because the site obscured (without notice or consultation) all details of GGOW and NHOW observations. So…consistency with non-evidence-based decisions made by eBird is not a compelling argument to make the same non-evidence-based decisions. Very discouraging.
EDIT: Related issue: the boundaries for Ontario, Quebec and Nunavut remain uncorrected in iNat’s system - see flags: https://inaturalist.ca/flags/542135, https://inaturalist.ca/flags/545808, https://inaturalist.ca/flags/545809. As I pointed out back in August, jurisdictional taxon geoprivacy in Canada will not be applied correctly over a large area in the centre of the country until the Ontario/Quebec/Nunavut boundary errors are fixed. As the final auto-obscure list is now here, is there an update on the boundary question?
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I’m pretty sure eBird obscured them for the same reason that was mentioned here - it was probably that their system wouldn’t allow them to have different statuses in different parts of Ontario, so they just obscured it in all of it.
But is that issue really big enough for you to leave eBird? It really doesn’t seem like a big deal.
What is the source of the restriction for this? The field in the Conservation Status section accepts any iNat place.
My understanding is, the issue isn’t technical, it is that the final decision is being made at the provincial/territorial level. So, despite being nearly 2,000 kilometres away in another time zone, the Natural Heritage Information Centre for Ontario is recommending/setting one status for the whole province - including Rainy River and Kenora. Northwestern Ontario needs to secede and join Manitoba, or, become a separate province. (A referendum would pass in a landslide - trust.)
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