State Governments Are Taking the ‘Great Outdoors’ Online
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Digital hunting and fishing permits, online boating accreditations and TV show-based camps are here just in time for summer.
With summer fast approaching, several state governments have bolstered their outdoor and recreational online presence in an effort to ease and expand access to those services.
Capitalizing on the popularity of Animal Planet’s hit series “North Woods Law,” the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife recently developed a youth sustainability camp, Camp North Woods.
Expecting high demand and with limited space, the department launched an online lottery for the 96 available spots with the $5 entry fees going toward the camp.
Winners between ages 8 and 12 will receive a week of hunting, outdoor survival, shooting, fishing, and trapping instruction from game wardens from the show, as well as conservation education.
In New York state, the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation announced Thursday the creation of an approved online course for obtaining a boating safety certificate.
“New York State is embracing the latest technologies to enable boaters and personal watercraft operators who need a boating safety certificate to more conveniently complete their coursework, State Parks Commissioner Rose Harvey said, according to the Saugerties Post Star. “Online boating education will make training available at a time and place best suited to the public, and help spread the message to even more New Yorkers.”
Before the course, an estimated 20,000 boaters had to spend eight hours in a classroom each year.
Two providers offer the course currently, with an anchor emblem added to state driver’s licenses, non-driver’s IDs and learner’s permits without need for a separate certificate through the New York Adventure License Series.
The change is part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s NY Parks 2020 initiative, which will invest $900 million in state parks to modernize them through that year with $110 million allocated this fiscal year.
In March, the Utah Department of Technology Services was recognized by the American Council for Technology for its hunting and fishing mobile app, acting as a first-of-its-kind digital wallet that can be scanned to verify proper permitting by state Division of Wildlife Resources officers.
Other features include alerting users to hunt dates, application periods, watchable wildlife events and public meetings.
DWR wants the app to hit 50,000 downloads by year’s end, KSL.com reported, and it had almost half that by late March.
“Official digital documents are a new concept for state governments,” David Fletcher, DTS’ chief technology officer, told the news site. “Providing access to digital copies of licenses is conceptually innovative and has tremendous potential for increasing government efficiency.”
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