2015 was a record breaking year in visitor numbers, a total of 27,150 guests visited us; a 35% increase on 2014, the previous record holder.
NAMMCO Conference
Sandra Granquist attended the scientific conference Impacts of Human Disturbance on Arctic Marine Mammals that was held by NAMMCO the 13th-15th of October in Copenhagen. She gave a presentation there, with the title “Effects of wildlife watching tourism on Arctic marine mammals, with a special note on harbour seal watching in Iceland”. Sandra and her team have for several years conducted comprehensive research into the effects of tourism on wild animals, and the lecture, among other things, presented the findings of these studies.
Nordic Symposium
The 24th Nordic Symposium in Tourism and Hospitality was held in Reykjavik on the 1-3 October.
Dr Leah Burns, head of the tourism research department here at the Icelandic Seal Centre, was on the conference organising committee. Dr Burns ran a joint session with Sandra Granquist, head of our Biological Department, called “Responsibly Engaging with Animals in Tourism”.
Both of them presented papers in that session. The titles were:
1. Codes of conduct for seal watching: An investigation of guidelines for human behaviour
Authors: Elin Lilja Öqvist, Sandra Granquist, Georgette Leah Burns and Anders Angerbjörn
2. Interpretation in wildlife tourism: Assessing the effectiveness of signage to modify visitor behaviour at a seal watching site in Iceland
Authors: Sarah Marschall, Sandra Granquist and Georgette Leah Burns
Opening hours
The number of visitors in October doubled from last year, as a result we are going to stay open for November. The opening hours are 12 noon to 3 PM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
Please get in touch if you would like to visit the centre at other times.
Use of thermal cameras
This summer the Seal Center has been working on a project in cooperation with Svarmi ehf, experimenting with the use of thermal cameras attached to drones when counting seals. The thermal camera is attached to a drone as well as a regular camera. After the drone has flown over the seal colony the count will be done off the photos from the twon kinds of cameras and compared as well as to counting results made from land.
Potpulation size counts are normally made from air. It can however sometimes be difficult to count from air for the seals can blend in with the environment. The experiment is to determine if the results will be more accurate when using a thermal camera rather than a normal one or manual counts.
Camera as is being used in the experiment