Wild vs. Captive/Cultivated Gray Areas

This whole “intended to be there/or not” argument is bizarre, and is too difficult to prove one way or the other. Unless someone is Eliza Thornberry and can talk to animals, there’s no way to know with certainty.

In the case of escaped/released pets, we have no way of differentiating whether something was deliberately released, or an accidental escapee. The only fallback would be to look at whether or not the species is native, not the individual specimen. Throw “intent”, and humans/organisms that are there because of human activities out of the equation, and a lot of these would become much more clear cut.

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In the context of the site, admin kueda commented the following on the obs I referenced above:

Humans being automarked captive “[is] not intended, but if it’s getting automatically marked as captive that would only happen if actual users have been marking humans as captive… which seems like a common problem. The automated votes are meant to amplify the work of minorities because so few people bother to mark things as captive, but clearly it leads to a lot of inaccurate data when it amplifies inaccurate data. I guess we’d consider functional changes to prevent that for humans (and yes, the Forum would be the place to start that discussion, but I don’t know what thread), but as with all crowdsourcing, the most important check against people’s poor judgement is the good judgement of other people, so if this really matters to you, you can start by marking observations of captive humans as wild.”

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In the social sciences, humans are never considered wild, and are only captive if actually in physical captivity. But as others have noted, iNat has its own definitions and there is no use changing them now.

For better or for worse, intent is how iNat decides if organisms are wild. That’s just how it is, and how all users should be evaluating individual observations.

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Here’s my two cents on each of these situations:

  1. If there is someone claiming ownership of them, then they are captive. If not, wild.
  2. Clear-cut wild (no human intention).
  3. With cats I would lean towards wild (since outdoor cats are basically all just wild animals freeloading off people). I would consider them captive if there any obvious signs of captivity (ex. a collar), but if not wild is the better assumption IMO. With birds I would lean towards captive.
  4. Clear-cut wild (no human intention).
  5. Clear-cut wild (no human intention).
  6. Clear-cut wild (no human intention).
  7. Clear-cut wild (no human intention).
  8. Captive. It’s the same individual until those runners are severed (and notably not intentionally severed by a human).
  9. Clear-cut captive. Completely dependent on humans and intentionally placed there by them.
  10. Clear-cut wild (no human intention).
  11. Clear-cut wild. The animal is where it intends to be.

See past discussion at https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/survey-about-criteria-for-wild-captive-observations/27007/10. Some broad take-aways:

There seems to be rough consensus that if a specific organism was introduced to a location by humans, that’s a good indication that it may be captive/not wild. However, this should not automatically apply to its offspring. This fits well with existing iNat official guidance.

Being fed by humans isn’t a good criteria, but receiving care or cultivation from humans, or being dependent on humans for survival, is.

Criteria about restriction to a particular area are only useful if that area is relatively small (or smaller than the organism’s natural territory). For example, just because Kruger National Park in South Africa has a fence around it, doesn’t mean the animals should be considered captive/not wild.

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If we took out the whole “organism intends to be where it wants to be” criteria, we would have the following (correct) interpretations of each of the following. I have no expertise on plants or plant diseases, as they are an entirely different ball-game, so all of those are omitted:

“-livestock that are free-roaming and aren’t bound by fencing or pens”
Wild, as there are far more widespread feral populations of cattle which can be documented.

“-pathogenic diseases affecting livestock or pets.”
Wild, as this is evaluating on the basis of strain.

“-cats or birds (pigeons, chickens, etc) that can go anywhere but come back to a garden or house at night.”
Wild, as there is far more widespread documentation of these animals as feral/established as a species.

“-algae/snails/worms/etc in a home aquarium that were not introduced to it on purpose.”
Captive, as these are not existing in the natural environment, regardless of whether they are “intended” to be there. Same with snake mites, organisms in greenhouses, etc.

“-pest insect in a bag of pre-washed frozen vegetables.”
Wild, as said insect exists as a species outside of the bag as well.

-honeybees in an orchard that come from managed hives
Captive, as these are currently under human care and management.

“-finding an animal in a vehicle/storage container/etc (e.g. driving to California from Pennsylvania and finding a living spotted lanternfly in your car).”
This should be determined on a case by case basis rather than any sort of one size fits all approach. If it can establish or survive there, then Wild. If not, it might as well be Captive, as it will soon just die anyway.

-“captive-release animals that constantly stay in the vicinity of the release site.”
This should be determined on a case by case basis, although in many cases, there is no way of differentiating a deliberately released animal from an accidental escapee. If there is not good evidence that it can, or will be likely to thrive and/or become established, it ought to be just marked Captive anyway. Most herps do not have the means of getting around as quickly or efficiently as many birds and mammals can, and those that escape or are released generally tend to not stray far from their point of release because they are domestically bred animals which lack the necessary survival traits to be non-dependent on humans, and are thus not “wild” animals.

That would make every conservation-dependent species captive. Actually, in an important sense, I do consider them to be so.

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Correct is a matter of opinion. Regardless of what your opinion is, like it or not, we need to be using iNat’s official definition when evaluating iNat observations.

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I see iNat as still being very much a work in progress, even though its had at least 5 or more years to catch up to superior herp sites such as HerpMapper, etc. I would also suspect that many of these ambiguities were not originally intended or envisioned to be so by the creators of iNat, and even the FAQ document here is very outdated, as even that information is over 7 years old and not very well written!

Captive Organism Observations · iNaturalist

Even so, if we don’t stick with consistent rules, the data essentially becomes useless. Site staff have already clarified that escaped/released pets are the very least DO count as wild.

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That’s why some of us are here. To push for better and more consistent rules, as information constantly evolves and changes and isn’t just static. You also constantly state that site staff have clarified this opinion, even though this only seems to be based off of a reply buried in another thread, and seems to be cherry-picking for opinions. Nowhere does this clarification appear in any sort of “official” site FAQ or document.

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This seems like the pot calling the kettle black. You are pretty blatantly going against iNat’s official definition, yet I’m the one cherry picking opinions?

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That’s the point. There is no such consensus, even amongst site staff. There is, however, plenty of reference to discussion and disagreements such as these, which would seem to be perfectly fine.

To rehash yet again, the FAQ document contains a long list of examples of wild vs. captive, although such escapees or releases fail to meet several of the following specific criteria for being “wild” animals:

“Living organisms dispersed by the wind, water, and other forces apart from humans”. Not the case. Animals in the pet trade didn’t get here naturally on their own without the involvement of humans at some point or another.

“A species that had been introduced to a new region and has established a population outside of human care.” Also oftentimes not the case.

Thus, we still have much ambiguity.
While posting an observation on iNaturalist, what does captive/cultivated mean? Noting It is important! · iNaturalist

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Those aren’t requirements for wild organisms, only some of the listed examples.

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I agree with voices pointing for difficulty with honeybees. In case of a bee on the flower, I don’t see ways to tell whether it comes from a hive, or from a feral colony, especially as honeybee workers can travel up to several kilometers from their nest. In addition to captive and feral honeybees, in some areas there are truly wild honeybees (probably in low numbers and often hybridized with bred lines, but still).
I mark honeybees as captive only in cases of photos of hives or beehive frames.

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If the original plant producing rhizomes was planted, then its natural expansion by rhizomes is still that of a “Captive/Cultivated” plant.

Again, if the original plant producing rhizomes was planted, then its natural expansion by rhizomes is still that of a “Captive/Cultivated” plant, regardless of whether it’s now six inches past the boundary of “the garden area” and into the adjacent lawn or on the other side of the fence.

But, realistically, this is sometimes impossible to determine (except by digging up the plant) and the whole issue of “captive/cultivated” versus “wild” is overall such a mess here that it becomes useless to worry about it much. If someone is trying to determine actual species naturalization in “the wild” of what are otherwise garden plants, they’re probably placing some arbitrary boundary around urban areas/towns/concentrations of dwellings and largely ignoring what’s within it.

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-livestock that are free-roaming and aren’t bound by fencing or pens
Non-wild

-pathogenic diseases affecting livestock or pets
Wild

-cats or birds (pigeons, chickens, etc) that can go anywhere but come back to a garden or house at night
If they are cared for by humans who consider them pets/rescues/etc. and intentionally adopted them to care for them, non-wild.
If they are just wild animals approaching humans on their own, wild.
If this is uncertain, I am willing to err on the side of wild. Feral cats and dogs, for example, I would consider wild, as not only are they interacting with the environment on their own terms but they are also surviving on their own terms.

-algae/snails/worms/etc in a home aquarium that were not introduced to it on purpose
Wild. Location data may be funky so I would mark it as something like “unknown provenance” or something. But, frankly, this is one way some species have actually spread, including ecologically-significant invasives. So this is important.

-a pathogenic fungus or virus affecting supermarket produce (not local)
Wild, same reason as above.

-plant parasites or galls on plants being sold at a nursery or garden store
Wild, same reason as above.

-pest insect in a bag of pre-washed frozen vegetables
Wild, same reason as above.

-garden plant spreading vegetatively beyond cultivation through runners or rhizomes (but importantly, not by seed)
I’d argue it’s growing on its own at this point and can be considered wild.

-honeybees in an orchard that come from managed hives
If this is known, I’d say non-wild.
In practice this may be difficult to determine, and I’d err on the side of wild if this is not known.

-finding an animal in a vehicle/storage container/etc (e.g. driving to California from Pennsylvania and finding a living spotted lanternfly in your car)
Wild, for the reason repeated above. Please include a note including possible source. Please also re-pin the location to the likely source if at all possible. If not possible, and the animal is somehow still alive after a while, then use its current location.

-captive-release animals that constantly stay in the vicinity of the release site
If they are no longer being taken care of, I’d say wild. How long until they are counted as wild, I am not sure.

Overall I tend to err on the side of wild in uncertain cases, based on the understanding that their being left alone means they are free to have whatever effects they may have on the surrounding ecological communities, and this information may be important to science for the purpose of tracking the migration/spread of species.

Two problems with this. First, you probably meant “native or naturalized” rather than just native. Surely we can count introduced weeds as wild.

For an issue with more substance, the problem is that with NOT marking a free animal (deliberately or accidentally released) as wild is that we don’t usually know if it’s a one-off that will just die or an early example of a population becoming established in the wild. Surely one of the good things about iNaturalist is that with all the people out there looking we can often record those early stages (though if we are to do so, we have to record lots of organisms that don’t establish populations, too). Also, unless we have good local knowledge, we may not know that the organisms we’re seeing is a member of a small, well-established wild population, like European Rabbits in Cannon Beach, Oregon, or Peacocks on Long Beach, Washington. Therefore, I’m all for marking “wild” organisms that are currently free.

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Not in western North America, there aren’t.

I’m not saying there are absolutely no small feral cattle populations, but such cattle are usually rounded up with the ranched cattle sooner or later, and bad winter storms usually kill off cattle that aren’t being fed by ranchers as well as some that ranchers are trying hard to feed. So I would not mark free-range cattle wild in western North America.

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