home > Press Room > Northwest Neighbors Article September 23, 2005

In The News

Northwest Neighbors September 23, 2005

Hunters turning to local Website to find quarry

BY SETH BROMLEY Staff Reporter

BURRILLVILLE - After nearly two years as a cyberspace hangout for Rhode Island hunters, the Web site RIHunts.com is still gaining fans and building its content.

Designed and operated by Burrillville resident Mark Mingain, the site went online in November, 2003. As this year's season gets underway, Mingain is working to further expand the site's capabilities as more and more hunters have found their way to it.

According to Mingain's statistics, RIHunts is now averaging 5,600 visitors a month, and the total number of visits since the site began is now 86.000.

"In the past two years the site has come along way and has grown quite a bit," Mingain said. 'It's doing extraordinarily well."

One of the most popular additions to the site is the “nature cam,” a digital video camera that Mingain has mounted in a wildlife-rich area in the woods near his home, and which supplies continuous feed to the site, 24 hours a day.

“People like the idea that they can see live deer in the wild while they're sitting at their desk
at work," Mingain said. “We added that last fall.”

Another popular and interactive section of the site is the photo gallery, on which users can upload and share their own pictures.

Mingain has also worked to acquire more content from other local hunting authorities and enthusiasts.

"I have worked with a gentleman who has developed calendars that show peak game movement times,” said Mingain. By accessing the calendars on the site, hunters can time their hunting trips to coincide with the times that their quarry are most likely to be moving around.

Mingain is also partnering with the New England Big Buck Club, which provides the site with hunting articles of local interest.

“I’ve had a good relationship with them,” Mingain said.

Rihunts has also continued to provide lots or practical information for area hunters, including maps of Rhode Island's wildlife management areas and a calendar that informs visitors of upcoming events. Mingain's goal when starting the site was to make it akin to “one-stop shopping” for web users looking for hunting information. He keeps readers up to date with daily links to DEM announcements, and his links section points the way to more than a hundred other Internet destinations.

Nearly two years after he began working on the site, Mingain said tie has finally gotten to the point where he is content to go a few days at a time without tinkering with it. With participation of the site’s user forums increasing, much of the site’s day-to-day activity comes from the visitors interacting with each other.

“The user forums are one of the best hooks of the site,” Mingain said. “Right now the users are talking about where they have gone and had success scouting deer.”

Although he has server statistics to show the number of hits the site receives, Mingain didn’t know for sure if his work was finding a receptive audience until he traveled to the Southern New England Sportsmen’s Show, where he had the pleasure of meeting some of his sites fans in person.

“It was a lot of fun,” he said. "I finally got to meet some of the people that use the site, talk hunting with them, and get suggestions.”

Spurred by the success of RIHunts, Mingain has started work on a companion site. RideInRI.com, an online resource for motorcyclists. That site lists links and information about local cycling clubs and posts frequently updated schedules for rides and bike nights in southern New England.

Despite his new venture, Mingain is still working to update RIHunts. He is authoring a weekly newsletter that he sends out to several hundred subscribers.

People can also sign up to receive "e-alerts." which Mingain sends out whenever he learns of a hunting-related news item or announcement. To allow for more user activity, he has added a chat roam and a team speak server to the main site. Users can log in to either one to communicate directly with one another.

Mingain said that as technology and connectivity move forward, he will continue to bring more options to the site.

"I try to give the users whatever I can. and then let them decide if they want to make use of it," he said.

# # #