MyMoose App

[russm86]

Got an e-mail about this in a fishing newsletter, don't recall seeing or hearing of it anywhere else yet but maybe I just missed it. Might be a good resource for our underfunded wildlife system and thought others might be interested and the more people using it I can only assume means better results.

http://www.mymoose.ca/

[2chodi]

The word is that government will not be using the data collected by the My Moose app at least partially because of a significant asking price by the app developer for the data collected.

[.300WSMImpact!]

everything is about the dollar

[TPK]

That's not what I have heard .. though the response I received to my questions isn't indicating the Ministry WILL use the data, just that an agreement letting them access it was signed. I had some other questions I was curious about, like who is behind MyMoose, are they hunters, do they support hunting, what are their thoughts on LEH , etc. Just trying to "feel" them out if you will. We (hunters and firearms enthusiasts) have been hosed before by people extending what we thought was an olive branch, looking for information and then using it in a way that did not reflect well.

Any way, here is some of the response I received pertaining to the data.


"My name is Sean Simmons and I publish The Angler's Atlas. Earlier this year we signed an agreement with the Ministry of Forests Lands and Natural Resource Operations to build a crowd sourcing moose app. Through that agreement, the Ministry has access to the data collected through the app. We are not passing along GPS data (lat/lon) to the Ministry, only management unit level data, as a number of hunters we spoke with during beta testing are not willing to release their exact location to the Ministry. "

[bridger]

So hunters collect the data for free and the designer sells the data to government? Is this how it's going to work?

[Whonnock Boy]

I am told he was given a govt. grant to develop the app, and now he is looking for compensation to collect and distribute the data on the governments behalf, but he's demanding a kings ransom to do so.


So hunters collect the data for free and the designer sells the data to government? Is this how it's going to work?

[russm86]

One of my questions was, how do they know a dozen different people aren't documenting the same 1 moose dozens of times?

[TPK]

From what I can discern, the data will not be heavily relied upon by MFLNRO, rather just for them to get an idea of where people are seeing moose so they know where to focus their inventory management if they were not already focused on those areas. If the GPS data isn't included, then it becomes the word of whom ever is reporting the sighting. Multiple people recording the same moose, sure, bound to happen, no biggie, the data isn't being taken verbatim and as gospel.

[bridger]

The local biologist in 7b built an app last winter to collect data on moose ticks. Easy to download and it automatically sent the God co ordinates. Very slick. We sent several reports in. Don't know why the my moose app designer wants $250,000 for info that he is getting for free from hunters. Especially when he received a grant to build it. Seems like the data could go straight to the ministry

[boxhitch]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/mymoose-app-tracks-shares-british-columbias-wildlife-data-in-real-time/article27310219/

Jesse Zeman, resident priority program manager for the B.C. Wildlife Federation, said MyMoose is valuable, but his organization is currently working with the province to develop a separate app.

“As a conservation organization, our objective is to support the monitoring of wildlife populations and [MyMoose] is an innovative way to do it,” he said. “But we are supporting the province in the creation of a [different] app to do that.”
Mr. Zeman said he couldn’t discuss the alternate app, but it will be modelled on a smartphone survey developed for hunters in Alberta.
In an e-mail, B.C. government spokesman Greig Bethel said the province “is working with the B.C Wildlife Federation and the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation to develop a tool to engage hunters and other members of the public in supporting wildlife research.”
Good on The Fed