Flag for Taxon: Cape Dwarf Chameleon (Bradypodion pumilum)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| loarie | Cape Dwarf Chameleon (Bradypodion pumilum) |
unobscure? |
Aug. 20, 2021 07:16:18 +0000 | loarie |
Comments
Oh: does this perhaps explain why a few other of our open species have suddenly been obscured?
Remember for southern Africa we do not follow the IUCN for obscuration, but the national Sensitive Species list. Please dont undo lots of useful projects and research by suddenly obscuring species that we have unobscured in the past!
Reason for not obscuring the species.
*1. General: In South Africa we prefer Red List species NOT to be obscured. We have a special category of Sensitive Species, for which obscuration is required. The rationale is that there is no point in hiding localities of species that are not collected or poached - i.e. those threatened by alien plants or destruction by cultivation or urbanization, as doing so will not help protect the species: in fact, it might have the opposite effect. But even collected species can have their localities open if they are common in cultivation and easily bred and available in the trade. Sensitive Species focusses on longer-lived and rarer species, and fashion species, and species for which the wild populations are a major source of traded material. More can be found here: http://biodiversityadvisor.sanbi.org/online-biodiversity-data/sensitive-species/
*2. This species is common in gardens all over Cape Town. It breeds easily in captivity. Although classified as vulnerable, this may be confusing, because although wild populations are declining, "tame" populations have invaded Cape Town gardens and are common. The decline in wild populations is due to urbanization.
The species is the focus of various surveys, and indeed was unobscured to allow a study of its distribution across the city. The projects dealing with this are:
-- https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/dwarf-chameleons-of-cape-town (a popular version)
-- https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/chameleons-of-cape-town-atlas (specifically to collect data on gardens and pets)
in addition, other projects are ongoing on other Dwarf Chameleons in the region (https://www.inaturalist.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=chameleon&commit=Go&source%5B%5D=projects) many of which are only useful if the data remain open.
Thanks for following up on this.
Give https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/updating-iucn-red-list-conservation-statuses/25712 a read for more context. We did update the reptile and amphibian statuses (e.g. LC, NT, etc.) but as explained in the post we did not update geoprivacy to give the community time to annotate conservation statuses with flags like this one (see forum post).
This all sounds great, we're just asking to establish a record (in the form of a linked flag) on IUCN conservation statuses where the geoprivacy is different from what's expected from the IUCN status so we can maintain the statuses while not squashing deviations like the ones you mention.
Thanks for helping us pilot this. A bit clunky I'll admit but eager to find a process to maintain these IUCN statuses and still accomodate status vs. geoprivacy concerns
@tonyrebelo edited the IUCN status to set geoprivacy to open despite its Near Threatened status. I created this flag and linked to it from the conservation status description to establish a record for why this decision was made. @tonyrebelo can you add more information?