Suntag News

[Lucky_Phill]

Suntag Another Casualty of Government Cuts

The Queensland Government has decided that Suntag should be another casualty of it drive to cut its budget deficit. While the push to reduce debt is supported the government has gone too far.

Suntag provides a frontline service to the fishing industry, is an important component of fisheries monitoring, is an outsourced service
previously supported by Fisheries Queensland and has strong support within the fishing industry. 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.

Suntag Continues to be a Leader


A number of websites have been introduced for Infofish projects. These are:
Suntag at www.info-fish.net/suntag (http://www.info-fish.net/suntag)
CapReef at www.info-fish.net/capreef (http://www.info-fish.net/capreef)
Crystal Bowl at www.info-fish.net/crystal-bowl (http://www.info-fish.net/crystal-bowl)
McArthur Monitoring at www.info-fish.net/king-ash-bay (http://www.info-fish.net/king-ash-bay)

Supporting each website is a Facebook page where more regular information on progress in each project is provided. Interesting recaptures are posted much more frequently, often every few days so more people are following the projects. We will continue with Suntag News for those that are not on Facebook.

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 we can now use different templates for different
projects. Certificates 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. Featured in the new
certificate for the McArthur Monitoring project in the NT.

[Lucky_Phill]

Cutting funding to Suntag is BS !!!!!

This non-government entity has been at the forefront of research for many years and Bill and his team are world leaders in this field.

Noddy needs to re-think this decision.


LP

[Feral]

My daughter recently caught her first tagged fish, and we were able to get info instantly from the database on line. It was great!
Just another example of Campbell Newman's bastardry.

[Lucky_Phill]

Nice work on the tagged fish. Really good feeling to know great work is being done..

Now is a good time to get her registered with Suntag so we have future generations tagging fish they intend to release.

cheers Phill

[ifishcq1]

Phil a part of the ptv levy $18 that we paid in our boat rego that was supposed to go to rec fishing went to Suntag
they have now changed the levy to a tax which pays the wages of fat cat bureaucrats in the transport department
incidentaly there was no public consultation before stealing our dollars
Infofish/suntag is actively seeking donation/sponsorship or funding from wherever they can get it to keep the standard
the output has slowed down considerably including the boat ramp surveys etc
cheers

[Horse]

Is Mark Robinson telling our Agriculture Minister that some his cuts to fisheries are a lot of pain for very little gain. I am still PMSL over "sacking" the fishcare volunteers. Phill, it might be time for you to have a chat with the new powers that be to explain the implications of some of their very poor decision making processes

[TheRealAndy]

Yup, have to agree this one sucks. Suntag was providing a lot of good information to the scientific community. I can vouch for that, having seen a lot of the data, and some excellent presentations from Bill Sawynok. There is a lot about fish stocks that the rec community is not aware of, and Bill has provided a lot of answers for. What a shame.

[finga]

Phil a part of the ptv levy $18 that we paid in our boat rego that was supposed to go to rec fishing went to Suntag
they have now changed the levy to a tax which pays the wages of fat cat bureaucrats in the transport department
incidentaly there was no public consultation before stealing our dollars
Not according to this

The registration fee includes an A$18.00 recreational use fee collected by Transport and Main Roads on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry for a range of functions to enhance recreational fisheries. More information is available from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website.
http://www.msq.qld.gov.au/Registration/Recreational-ships.aspx
And when I do an E-Quote it's recreational fee
https://www.service.transport.qld.gov.au/eQuote/eQuote.jsp
So is that false advertising?

[ifishcq1]

Finga, The site has changed recently
It was a levy originally and it was used to enhance recreational fishing but no more it is now essentially a tax that does nothing at all for rec fishing, so yes perhaps it is false advertising
cheers