Award-winning mobile fishing technology, summer education programme launched
15 October 2011
Launching the new public summer awareness campaign, “4 Million Guardians”, MAF Director General Wayne McNee tonight took the opportunity to congratulate the Ministry’s Compliance and Response team and the developers on their award-winning mobile fishing rules application.
“Finding the fishing rules for your area is now just a text or smartphone application away with our two new mobile services,” Mr McNee said. “Their potential was tonight recognised at the prestigious FutureGov awards in Malaysia, and at MAF and elsewhere the possibilities for adaptation seem limitless.”
The new services, which are free, deliver important fishing rules information such as catch limits or fish size limits to mobile phones 24 hours a day.
Mr McNee said it’s often when people are already out fishing that they find they need to know the relevant rules.
“They may not have our fishing handbook on them, so they can now access the most current information for the geographical area by phone no matter where they are around New Zealand.
“The fishing rules app is one of the government sector’s first uses of smartphone technology to deliver information in a convenient way to consumers. It is certain to have great potential in other areas like border control and biosecurity.”
The second new service enables those with standard mobile phones to text the species they’re fishing for to 9889. They receive a return text detailing the relevant rules for that species. There are no charges for texts.
MAF is still providing a phone-in service for fishing information which can be accessed by calling 0800 4 POACHER (0800 476 224). The former 0800 4 RULES number has been discontinued.
Mr McNee said MAF was making available the full suite of rules information in time for the busy summer fishing season. “Once the Rugby World Cup is over, many of our 4 Million Guardians will be out enjoying the excellent fishing opportunities throughout the country.
“You won’t have any reason not to know the rules. Find them out yourself and tell your children and whanau. Fishery Officers will be out and about throughout the summer but they can’t do it all on their own.”
Go here to get the smart phone application