Launch of the Barrier Tracker app celebrated in the Netherlands with the Happy Fish On Tour

From the 18th till the 22st of April could the HappyFish on Tour-bus be spotted in the Netherlands. To celebrate World Fish Migration day and the launch of the AMBER citizen science application, this bus was driving all over the Netherland to participate in events and talk about the importance of the new Barrier Tracker app. On the 21st of April, the official launch took place for the AMBER citizen science app, which has as main goal to obtain a complete overview of barrier in European rivers with the help of citizen science. This complete overview will put in picture the current situation in river fragmentation, will make spotting of bottlenecks for fish-migration easier, and enable decision-makers know which rivers-systems have outdated barriers or see which barriers will need to be updated.

The HappyFish on Tour bus was a driving event in the Netherlands in the week of the 21st of April, which was comprised of four people: Iwan Hoving, Lissie de Groot, Bas Deelman and Sebastiaan Hoogeweegen. In the theme of World Fish Migration Day 2018, the Happy Fish, they went out and both promoted and celebrated fish migration and the importance of it. They visited many different kinds of events, such as plastic-beach clean-ups, seminars on dam removal and fish migration, and went to the Flyfair 2018 in Putten.

The bus itself was filled with all types of educational materials, colouring pictures, posters and flyers which was spread to raise awareness and to tell about the citizen science app. On the 21st of April itself, the team officially announced the release of the app in front of the Wadden-centre with the director of the wadden-centre and representatives of Sportvisserij (Sportfishing) Netherlands, and municipality Friesland.

At the start of the tour, the following trailer was released for the Happy Fish on Tour.