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everyone reads the wanaka sun
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Season going well
Looking the part page 2
similar to last year, down While Wanaka numbers for duck shooting are anecdotally up. well ntly south numbers and size of the birds are appare s found that the game A Fish and Game telephone survey of more than 100 hunter pleased with the only not were s Hunter 2007. since best the bird season was average bag of the ted; condition of the birds, but also with the number harves paradise of bags good and , hunter per mallards for the weekend was 13.6 ed. record also were or shellduck and shovel
Democracy in action page 5
PHOTO: wanaka.tv
Cyber future for police Tim Brewster
Hiking healer page 6
sunviews page 11
Young team show commitment page 16
Wanaka police are planning to enter the ever-changing world of social media to help catch criminals and post safety messages. Using Facebook as an online version of wanted posters, police will either combine with the established Queenstown police page or set one up themselves. “We’re going to go ahead. By winter would be ideal but we don’t know how much is involved,” Senior Sergeant Allan Grindell (pictured) said. Wanaka currently has seven closedcircuit television cameras in public areas and combined with in-house camera systems used by a number of businesses, it is hoped the new system will reduce the amount of time to resolve crime as it has in Queenstown. The increased use of mobile phones with internet access and the fact the majority of violent offending takes place at night in the Ardmore Street area which has a number of
PHOTO: tim brewster
CCTV cameras means offenses could potentially be resolved much more quickly, Allan said. “Historically disorder and violence [in Wanaka] are most common at night in Ardmore Street.” If a number of people are alerted to an incident while they are in the area, identifying
the offender may be easier and quicker, he said. Posting safety messages and updating them would also be considered as a useful role for the page. Queenstown Police set up a page in 2009 and received international media coverage for their first so-called
“Facebook arrest” in Time magazine and British papers. Businesses have used the site to show images of shoplifters and violent late night offences; skydivers have reported their parachutes being stolen; images of people urinating on pool tables, vandalising park benches and suspected of being handbag thieves have all made their way onto the pages. The site has 3565 followers with some offenders being identified only minutes after committing a crime, Queenstown Senior Sergeant John Fookes said. CCTV footage from businesses is assessed on a caseby-case basis and the response from the public has been very positive, he said. “We are always mindful of privacy, issues in the material we post. The material posted needs to meet the same rules and requirements as does the information we provide to newspapers to publish. It’s a very effective tool and we need to use it wisely.”