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Important--eBird Enhancements and Sensitive Data

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Bill Hubick

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Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:05:06 -0800

Hi Everyone,

As Marshall summarized in his latest post, eBird has recently released many powerful new features. It is clear that eBird is revolutionizing how we collect, use, and share bird distribution data. The new mapping feature, for example, provides unprecedented transparency to our regional bird records. It will be of tremendous value both for birding and for serious conservation work. It's exciting stuff. However, as eBird breaks new ground, both the developers and the individual contributors need to think ahead on the subject of sensitive data. With that in mind, I humbly request that we take a moment to consider some fine points of data sharing in eBird.

For a long time, eBird has made our sightings available via a variety of useful features, including bar charts for states, counties, and hot spots. With each additional tool, such as the Google Gadget and arrival/departure reports, sharing has become faster and easier than ever. 

While I am a strong supporter of data sharing, we all know that there are times when a specific sighting should not be shared publicly. This might be due to concerns over property owner privacy or for the reproductive success of a rare and/or sensitive species. Because an eBird report that is submitted normally is publicly available, care should be taken when reporting potentially sensitive species. As a general rule, if you would feel uncomfortable posting a sighting on the list-serve, it should now be treated carefully in eBird. In these cases, there are several things that can be done to protect individual birds or sites. 

THE HIDE FEATURE

- The most important feature is the "Hide" feature, which is now available at the bottom of reports when UPDATING (NOTE: not on initial submission) a report in eBird. This feature should be enhanced in the future, but for now completely hides the report from all maps and lists except your personal records and direct queries by administrators. This means that hidden reports CURRENTLY provide no data for science, so the feature should be used sparingly. In the future, I hope the Hide feature will be enhanced to hide sightings only from certain outward-facing reports (e.g., the map feature) while making all data available to appropriate scientific efforts. 

HOW TO USE THE HIDE FEATURE

- Submit an eBird report normally
- Go to "My eBird" > "Manage My Observations"
- Click "View or Edit" for the report of interest
- At the bottom of the page, click "Hide". You will see a scary message that discourages its use except when necessary. Click OK.

Minutiae: 

In my testing, if you submit a rare bird report and then immediately hide it, it hasn't been picked up by the Google Gadget. I'm not sure this is always the case. To be 100% careful, you'd have to wait one week before reporting and then hide the sighting.

If you share a sensitive report with your birding companions, you must hide the report before sharing it to affect their copies of the report. If you want to be careful, ask your companions to ensure it is hidden, too.

In some cases, reports need only be hidden temporarily to avoid undue disturbance. When no longer sensitive--when the saw-whet owl leaves your neighbor's Arbor Vidae--please un-hide the report. 

THE GOOGLE GADGET

The Google Gadget is configured to alert viewers of rare birds, and it displays rare sightings for one week after the sighting date. To ensure that data does not appear on the Google Gadget, simply wait one week. Keep in mind that after that week, the sighting is still available via the map and other features.

ENTERING LOCATIONS FOR SENSITIVE SPECIES

Another method to protect an individual bird is to report the sighting at a less specific location. For example, you might not want to give the exact location for the saw-whet owl you found. However, if instead of saying "Intersection of Roads X & Y," you might report it as "Patuxent Research Refuge--North Tract" or "Road X" (with a Distance Covered of several miles, etc.). This makes the data public and useful to conservation without facilitating undue pressure on the birds. As with the above suggestions, please use discretion for when this is appropriate.

PLEASE CONSIDER

- Hiding your sensitive sightings. Keep in mind that historic records of species probably do NOT need to be hidden, only locations that CONTINUE to be sensitive.

- Policing ourselves. Just as we would recommend not posting precise locations of sensitive owl roosts on the list-serve, we should recommend to others that sensitive locations not be shared on eBird. Let your friends know if they have some reports out there that should be hidden. We generally do things right on our list-serves, and the same guidelines can be adapted here.

COUNTERPOINT (ALSO IMPORTANT)

I have discussed my concerns about sensitive data with Marshall Iliff, and he makes great points about why hiding should be used only when necessary. I would summarize these as, "We can't protect it if we don't know it's there." We must find the proper balance that ensures maximum value of our data and minimum negative impact on the birds. 

SUMMARY

As we continue to cooperate on this important effort, let's make sure we're thinking ahead about the well-being of the birds we are monitoring. I'm sure all eBird users will agree that the last thing we want is for our carefully gathered data to have a negative impact on the birds themselves. 

As a final note, please understand that I am 100% behind the eBird effort and that I encourage everyone to participate. I just want to ensure that we quickly adapt our birding ethics to the new technology. If you're not already using eBird, I hope you'll consider doing so. And if this sounded remotely preachy, I sincerely apologize. I just want to make sure we do this right.

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. 

Good birding,

Bill

Bill Hubick
Pasadena, Maryland

http://www.billhubick.com