Ah but first is it a valid species? :) What is the iNat policy for obscuring location? As far as terrestrial gastropods go, they're fairly understudied so I'm wondering what NatureServe is using for that ranking anyway.

In general because the geoprivacy status was auto-populated based on IUCN and NatureServe data, there are far too many gastropods being automatically obscured right now on iNat. If this is a task that interests you, here's a handy link to help identify potential species that might be better off unobscured. I excluded Canada from this search because of the details you'll see in that Curator Guide section above.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?not_in_place=6712&place_id=any&subview=grid&taxon_geoprivacy=obscured&taxon_id=47114&view=species

because with the location data locked down it makes them even harder to study/understand (I'm not recommending removing statuses, just changing from obscured to open when advisable)

The Natureserve page is here: http://explorer.natureserve.org/servlet/NatureServe?searchName=Ariolimax%20buttoni

Their reasons (from 2009) for declaring A. buttoni to be G2- Imperiled are as follows:

"NatureServe Status

Global Status: G2G3
Global Status Last Reviewed: 10Sep2009
Global Status Last Changed: 10Sep2009
Rounded Global Status: G2 - Imperiled
Reasons: Recently separated taxonomically from Ariolimax columbianus, this species occurs from Tuolomne Co., Monterey Co., the eastern shore of San Francisco bay (including Alameda, Sacramento, Mendocino, Marin, and San Francisco Co.) and the City of San Francisco; and is expected in Shasta Co.
Nation: United States
National Status: N2N3 (10Sep2009)"

I've made the change to both Global and U.S. visibility, and the locations of observations are now showing unobscured.

Continuing a conversation from https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/23338689 on this flag since its related to the topic here and better place than on someone's observation.

...I'm not disagreeing that there may be a decline in banana slugs, I'm just questioning whether these are driven by poachers removing individuals from the population versus
climate change or land use change, some disease etc.

If the latter are the drivers, than you could argue that scientists need access to more accurate distribution data to understand and manage these declines (ie iNat location data helps protect the species not hurts).

And even if there is some trade for banana slugs I think we should ask whether iNaturalist makes it easier to locate banana slugs. I'd argue that to find banana slugs its more efficient to go moist evergreen forests in the bay area during wet conditions than to try to track down the locations of past observations.

In general, conservation statuses reflect the aggregate impact of a range of threats to a species (globally, or within a specific jurisdiction). Some of those threats (e.g. poaching) are aggravated by sharing precise location info. Other threats (e.g. habitat loss, climate change) are not, and having better distribution data can even assist in protecting these species.

My understanding is that the iNat team was alert to the need not to assist poachers and needed a way to easily determine which of many thousands of species should have obscured locations. The easy solution was to use conservation status as a proxy. As the Curator Guide says: "iNaturalist initially obscured the locations of all taxa with an IUCN equivalent status of Near Threatened or 'worse' ".

In reality, those location-specific threats are often related to rarity and particularly affect charismatic/tasty animals or showy/unusual plants. There are lots of NT and threatened species that aren't at risk from poaching, etc. For this reason, there's an ongoing discussion about a more flexible policy. Meantime, curators can adjust the status of existing taxa when that is warranted.

Nothing I've read about banana slug conservation suggests that there's any meaningful risk from collection. I can imagine that increased visitation in some area might be a threat to a less common species, but I don't see that iNat location data is going to drive that increased visitation.

Hi @truthseqr. I do appreciate your sincere concern that we do the right thing with location data for banana slugs.

I realize that you've experienced a decline in banana slug populations at Big Basin, Bear Creek Redwoods, and Rancho San Antonio. I don't know whether that decline has been documented by research there or in other areas. Possibly there are documented declines in many places, possibly in a few, maybe none.

If/where there are declines, I don't know that that no-one knows why those are occurring. Very possibly there are research projects looking at that, some of which may have reported research. I haven't searched for these.

Realistically, it just seems that the likelihood of poaching driven by iNat observations being a significant factor in population decline is vanishingly small.

First of all, I don't see any evidence that people are collecting banana slugs for food outside of a few people posting recipes for the "Ugh!" factor. Sure, you can maybe eat banana slugs in a similar way to escargots. Is anyone going to do that regularly?

Secondly, using an iNat observation as a way to locate a banana slug to capture seems like it would be a frustrating technique. Slugs don't move all that fast (maybe six inches per min on average) but trying to relocate one based even on a very recent observation with very precise coordinates would seem to be unproductive.

One might argue that iNat location data is still useful to find "slug hotspots". However, it's already very clear to anyone interested in finding banana slugs where to go. Walk into a northern California forest during a damp time of day or year and you'll have a good chance of finding some. To the extent that your data might show declining prevalence of slugs in some locations, the effect would be for putative slug hunters to search elsewhere.

Lastly, even though there are threats to banana slug populations, it's not like we're talking about a numerically rare species complex. There are still many thousands (likely millions) of even the less common species.

We can contrast this with the type of organism that poachers do target. Among animals it's often rare birds, snakes and other herps that are in demand from collectors and which would be costly and difficult to raise in captivity. Edibility is also a factor, and I'm going to hazard a guess that abalone tastes a lot better than slug.

With plants, poaching is mostly a threat for rare and visually interesting species, especially mature specimens such as decades-old cacti. Those factors don't seem to apply to banana slugs, where's there's no apparent demand, a short lifecycle, and any scarcity is far from approaching rarity.

I do think this debate has been a useful way to investigate some of the issues around obscuring location info. Thanks for bringing up the issue.

Hi @truthseqr. It's great that there are actual expert biologists who engage with iNat. As for myself, I'm just an interested amateur with fewer qualifications than you.

I'm pleased that most discussions on iNat and in the forum tend to be productive and I've definitely learned a lot and changed my views in some areas. I'm glad that you were willing to stick up for something that concerned you, and I'd encourage you to keep doing that.