Flag for Taxon: Aoudad (Ammotragus lervia)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bouteloua | Aoudad (Ammotragus lervia) |
should it really be obscured globally? |
Mar. 1, 2021 23:06:45 +0000 | bobby23 |
Reduced geoprivacy to natural range. |
Comments
I'm not experienced with this species in particular, but I think that it would make sense to keep the species obscured in Africa and other native areas, and in the United States to leave it unobscured.
In all fairness, I don't think keeping observations obscured in the native range makes any difference whatsoever. There are very few observations, and the threat is not posed by people who visit this website, but by local nomads (and occasional Gulf states 'guests') who poach them indiscriminately, and know very well where to find them. The range of these animals exceeds a hundred kilometres, so blurring an observation by a few kilometres does not hide anything, on the other hand even if an individual was observed at a given location at a given moment in time, it will be somewhere completely different by the time someone goes looking.
My preference is that if a species is considered globally threatened, the information is more accurate if it is applied to a species globally. This is likely not an issue with aoudads, but sometimes threatened species are still at risk outside of their native ranges (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/rhinoceros-vince-paris-killed.html). Auodads are considered trophy animals in parts of the world.
However, I can see from a utilitarian perspective why this would be useful for people who are managing this species in Texas and Spain, and I recently reduced the IUCN geoprivacy setting for another ruminant species per request because - while endangered in India - is an invasive problem species in Australia. This species is now only obscured in Asia.
In Texas in particular, there are issues where escaped exotic game animals carry diseases that native relatives (e.g. bighorn sheep, elk, deer) have no immunity and the state government has been trying to mitigate the issue. I don't think reducing its geoprivacy obscurity to just Africa would be detrimental. @boutelou has anyone been asking to unobscure this species specifically?
@boutelou has anyone been asking to unobscure this species specifically?
not explicitly, but issue raised by @jnstuart: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/should-subspecies-inherit-conservation-statuses-from-species/7436/3
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/should-inat-obscure-birds-hidden-not-hidden-in-ebird/17822/9
Aoudad is introduced and a Protected Game species in New Mexico; the "protected" designation only means that you need a license to hunt it in the appropriate season. It has become something of a concern due to range expansion into areas where native Bighorn Sheep occur or are being re-established ... similar to Texas, I suspect. Obscuring localities in New Mexico seems unnecessary, but I realize that there are probably many such cases where localities of a species should be obscured in some areas and where it serves no purpose in others.
That's understandable. If there is an interest and benefit, I would think limiting its global geoprivacy to just Africa would be fine.
There was a flag on an identification asking to unobscure it, which was resolved by Cassi and the topic moved here... so I guess you could say that there was someone asking for it.
I have reduced its geoprivacy to just Africa.
It has changed back to being globally obscured.
I think iNaturalist has begun transitioning to situations where taxa have their global IUCN range statuses changed automatically, leading to things like this.
hmmm, that's a frustrating erasure of a lot of discussions and work...
also weird that it lists Africa twice on the Status tab, but only once on the edit screen
I looked at US records just now and they don’t look obscured to me.
yep, I swapped it back to the prior decision
Threats on IUCN list hunting and trapping, so perhaps it should remain obscured in its native range?
cc: @ptexis @candechivas @lorospericos @andrasz