#Scrub exif data mac Patch#
#Scrub exif data mac series#

It's not only exact locations that herpers are afraid of sharing. Apps like HerpMapper and iNaturalist automatically obscure the locations of species observed. And it isn't just amateur herpers who are becoming secretive more and more scientists, including Howey, are taking care to obscure or even omit locations of certain species to avoid them being harassed, collected, or even killed. Nowadays, asking where a den is, or even a time when snakes are most active, is akin to asking someone how their mother is doing at her funeral.

And if we're talking about a species that is despised, threatened, or endangered, she added, 'there's a real risk of harm to individuals and populations.'ДЄmarello wasn't referring specifically to the timber rattlesnake, which is currently listed endangered in a handful of states and threatened in others, primarily in the north and northeastern US.

'Collectors certainly use Instagram, forums, and other online resources to find new populations to pillage,' wrote Melissa Amarello, co-founder of Advocates for Snake Preservation, in an email. This animosity has caused amateur 'herpers' (short for herpetologist, a scientist who studies reptiles and amphibians) who gather online to share pictures of animals seen, to become extremely cautious when it comes to sharing location information for fear of the animals being collected for the pet trade or killed. Some town economies are heavily based on rattlesnake roundups, where thousands of snakes are killed in front of tens of thousands of viewers.ДЄsking where a den is, or even a time when snakes are most active, is akin to asking someone how their mother is doing at her funeral. Even today, people will post gloating pictures of a beheaded snake, rattlesnake or otherwise. Pregnant females would be gutted, their rattles and the rattles of their unborn babies cut off for a $1 bounty. As author and former Bronx Zoo zoologist Ted Levin wrote in his book on timber rattlesnake biology and conservation, early settlers would create involuntary snake suicide bombers, tying lit gunpowder to the animals and letting them into the dens. Benjamin Franklin once called the rattlesnake 'a strong picture of the temper and conduct of America', which would make sense if America was a long-lived, slow-growing, near-sighted, sociable creature that took care of its children and spent its winters underground with dozens of its neighbors.ДЄmerica, however, has long had a bad relationship with this supposed mirror image of itself.

Some Appalachian Christians still practice their faith by holding the serpents bare-handed. They led me, sweating and crawling with spiders, to a special, out-of-the-way pile of rocks that soon promised to hold a slithering congregation of venomous timber rattlesnakes preparing to den for the winter.ДЄs a species, rattlesnakes are almost quintessentially American.

#Scrub exif data mac Patch#

The coordinates were for something better than a place that sold a really, really good cup of coffee, or an illegal outdoor marijuana patch known only to stressed out, local graduate students. 'Make sure the GPS-embedding is off on your camera. 'Turn off anything that transmits location before you visit it,' he said. Chris Howey, an assistant professor at the University of Scranton, slid over a Post-it with the coordinates I had come for.

#Scrub exif data mac series#

This story is part of OUTER LIMITS, a Motherboard series about people, technology, and going outside. That goes for any at-risk species when poachers and collectors are scanning social media to scout new populations to ransack.ДЄ timber rattlesnake curls up defensively on a state forest road. For the Love of Rattlesnakes, Scrub All GPS Data from Your Nature Photos