Define "Wild"
The City Nature Challenge and, indeed, iNaturalist are a attempts to document the wild flora, funga, and fauna of their respective areas. But just what is “wild”? I guess the simplest definition is “a member of a self-sustaining population that subsists without human intervention.” But that raises as many questions as it answers.
Obviously, any organism that was native to this area prior to European settlement and has been native continuously to the present is “wild.” This includes such things as great blue herons, white-tailed deer, monarchs, post oaks, Spanish moss, Indian blankets, Devil’s dipsticks, and golden-eye lichens. The “continuous” part rules out organisms, such as American bison, that have been extirpated from our area but now occur here only as reintroductions dependent upon human support.
Organisms that have made natural range extensions into our area and have established self-sustaining populations are considered wild. One example that comes to mind is cattle egret, which “introduced” itself from Africa in the twentieth century and “island-hopped” the Caribbean to Florida and is now present throughout the Southeastern United States.
Organisms that were introduced by humans and have established self-sustaining populations without human intervention are also considered wild, even if their origin is another part of North America. No one can argue that rock pigeons or European starlings are not “wild.” The European wild boar is also, for better or worse, a well-established part of Texas’s wild fauna. Established non-native plant species that are likely to be encountered in our area include Chinese tallow, quihoui privet, and giant reed. The website texasinvasives.org is a good place to look for some of the worst invasive species.
Organisms (primarily animals) that are taken from the wild and preserved as specimens or used for other purposes are considered wild, rather than captive/cultivated for CNC and iNat purposes. Thus, fishes caught by fishers from the wild and either released or kept for dinner are considered wild. Birds, including hummingbirds, at feeders are wild, as they are free to come and go. Insects collected for collections are considered wild. In this case, be sure that the locality and date of the observation are those of the original collection, not the locality and date of the later photography. (Thus, for the CNC, they must have been collected in the 4-day CNC period.) The same applies to microscopic observations.
Organisms that do not have a self-sustaining population or that cannot exist in the wild without human intervention are not considered wild for CNC or iNat purposes. As fond as we are of them, these include pets and cultivated plants. Feral cats in a human-supported colony are not valid, but wild feral cats without human support would be. The blackbucks in the paddocks at Rock Prairie and Bird Pond Road and the giraffes at Aggieland Safari are also off-limits. The CNC was originally established to encourage "urban ecology," and such observations are still encouraged, but parks and yards can be problematic in determining what is wild and what is not. Keep in mind the “human-support” criterion. Thus the crepe myrtles and the Bermuda grass are probably not wild, but the dandelions and the fox squirrels probably are. (People are probably feeding the squirrels, but the squirrels could probably survive without the supplemental feeding.)
Bruce Neville
Brazos Valley CBC Coordinator
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