DESPITE being another casualty of the Campbell Newman Government’s funding cuts, QLD-based fish monitoring organisation Suntag will continue to operate.
In the latest Suntag newsletter, Coordinator Bill Sawynok says “we will continue to provide a reduced level of service to the fishing public until we can secure alternative funding.”
Suntag is the largest recreational tagging database in the world with 670,000 tagged fish and 53,000 recaptures covering the past 25 years. In 2011/12 there were almost 2,000 recreational and commercial fishers that contributed information to Suntag. With that level of investment in the program we will work hard to ensure that Suntag continues as it has the support of fishers, if no longer the support of government.
In related news, Suntag has introduced a number of websites for Infofish projects. Suntag Online was introduced a few months ago allowing registered fishers to access their own data (read only), upload their fishing trip or tagging details, generate their own reports and assess their progress towards tagging awards. Since its introduction there have been 160 fishers registered for Suntag Online and they have generated over 600 reports.
New tag and recapture certificates have been introduced and can be emailed direct from the database to the person that recaptured the fish and the tagger. The certificates can be printed by the recipient or can continue to be sent in the mail.
The latest InfoFish websites are: Suntag at www.info-fish.net/suntag
CapReef at www.info-fish.net/capreef
Crystal Bowl at www.info-fish.net/crystal-bowl
McArthur Monitoring at www.info-fish.net/king-ash-bay
