What is a sensitive species?

Wildlife Insights is committed to sharing data for conservation purposes. However, certain species may be at-risk with the exposure of specific geographic location data. Wildlife Insights will restrict public access to exact locations of sensitive species in order to protect these species.
 

How does Wildlife Insights define sensitive species?

The list of sensitive species is defined and managed by Wildlife Insights based on best practices and expert consultations. The Wildlife Insights sensitive species list currently includes:

• All terrestrial vertebrates (mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds) with IUCN RedList categories CR, EN, and VU.

In addition, Wildlife Insights may enter into specific agreements that include regionally identified sensitive species. The geographic locations of these regionally sensitive species will also be protected by the practices defined below.

How does Wildlife Insights protect sensitive species locations?

Wildlife Insights will fuzz the exact coordinates of all deployments set at a location where a sensitive species is captured. Each coordinate will be averaged with other locations and truncated to 0.1 decimal degree (~11km). The fuzzed coordinates will be provided in lieu of the exact coordinates in all public downloads. Wildlife Insights will also hide the Location Name and will randomize the Deployment ID so that this information cannot be used to determine a location.

If you are downloading public data, you can determine which deployments have fuzzed coordinates by referring to the column titled Fuzzed in the deployments.csv file provided in your download package. If the value is True, the deployment's coordinates have been fuzzed. If the value is False, the coordinates provided are the exact coordinates provided to Wildlife Insights.