What a varied and busy week! In the last 10 days we have had more successful days tracking minke whales. The weather has been with us most of the time, which has resulted in several more hours worth of excellent data on the behaviour of the whales in Faxafloi Bay, both around whale watch vessels and in isolation. Additionally we also had two days of poor weather, when the sea state prevented us from tracking whales but was good enough for us to conduct research of the wider area, searching for minke whales. Hopefully with sufficient study effort over the main area where whale watching occurs we can make an estimate of how many minke whales are in the area and therefore an approximate exposure rate for each minke to whale watch vessels.
We also had an opportunity during the inclement weather to take measurements of vessel noise in the water. All the whale watch companies in Reykjavik were very helpful in passing SOTW at a variety of cruising speeds allowing us to make calibrated recordings of the noise each vessel made underwater. We are hoping these data will be useful for the whale watching companies to help make their vessels as quiet as possible.
The SOTW team has hosted a number of guests this week. Following Bill Oddie ‘s visit with the BBC One Show crew who were making a short segment about IFAW’s work in Iceland, Jim Gray from DEFRA joined the crew for a few days and then three British Members of Parliament visited IFAW’s project in Iceland: Tracy Crouch, John Leach and Tom Harris all helped us track and photo-ID minke whales and were introduced to the science SOTW carries out to support whale conservation around the world.
To top all of this off, we had an open day in Akranes mid-week where around 300 school children of varying ages came to visit the boat and learn about our work; the students listened to whale sounds, learned more about whales and explored the boat. Additionally, the boat was open to Akranes residents too and so many of them popped down to see what we were studying in their local waters.
So a successful week all in all, including a big crew change. Russell, Susie, Fredrick, Michelle and Jeff have headed home, but Olly and Brian are back and two Icelandic students join us for the upcoming voyage offshore.
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.