I recently discovered that at least some user-defined geographic areas are not searchable on the Explore screen (using the website on Firefox), e.g. Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park. This area has been defined by iNat users: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=149319&subview=map. However, when I search for this park in Explore I get a meaningless bounding box around the label in Google Maps: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=49.0872391302915&nelng=-111.6182203697085&place_id=any&subview=map&swlat=49.0845411697085&swlng=-111.6209183302915
I have developed a work-around to access the user-defined area, but it is cumbersome. I open an observation that was made in this park. Then I click on “Details” below the map, which displays the community-curated places that this observation belongs to. Then the user-defined area appears and I can click on it, which will take me to the Explore screen with the correctly defined area.
My question is: Why are user-defined places not searchable in Explore? Can this be fixed?
Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park exists in Google Maps but simply as a locality, not a defined area with concrete boundaries. It appears as though iNat defaults to Google Maps when someone searches in Explore and draws an arbitrary bounding box around the label, which has nothing to do with the actual park boundaries. This is not very helpful.
Feedback would be appreciated,
Matthias