For this instalment, Anja Reckendorf, a research assistant at WDC North America, gives her personal reflection on an amazing week.
Anja. An outstanding week just came to an end and I am not sure if I can successfully describe all the amazing experiences that we had, but I will give it a try. In a nutshell, the first ever WhaleFest in Iceland, was a combination of whale watching trips with programme lectures from many top whale experts as well as time to explore the beautiful Icelandic countryside. For the past three years, herring have chosen the fjord outside the small fishing village of Grundarfjörður as their safe winter port and with them came the orcas to feed on them. This phenomenon provides a golden opportunity to see the large number of orcas swimming extremely close to shore in the fjord. WhaleFest included three whale watches with Laki Tours in Grundarfjörður and for me, a fairly experienced whale watcher, it was amazing to see these magnificent animals in such large numbers and close proximity to the boat and shore. They didn’t seem to be bothered by us watching them at all and a calf even chose to check us out and swim by the boat only two metres away! We were thrilled! I don’t know how to put my euphoria into words. We got so spoiled on these trips, it was unbelievable!
The evenings were filled with great talks from world renowned specialists in their fields. We were very lucky to hear awe-inspiring lectures from Erich Hoyt (orca expert and marine conservation champion, WDC), Rob Lott (WDC), Vassili Papastavrou (IFAW), Sigursteinn Másson (IFAW Iceland) and Dr Filipa Samarra (Marine Research Institute, Iceland). Being able to meet with these well-known cetacean researchers and conservationists, to hear about their amazing work and go out on the boat with them to see orcas – tons of orcas – was an absolute once in a lifetime experience! We also had the opportunity to learn from local “heroes” and specialists such as Ragnar Sigurdsson (world-renowned Icelandic photographer), Gisli Olafsson (founder of Laki Tours), Ásbjörn Bjorgvinsson, (Chairman & founder of Húsavík Whale Museum) and Maria Bjork Gunnarsdottir (Elding Whale Watching, Reykjavík). Being educated about orca research, acoustic and behavioural studies, whale watching tourism in contrast to whaling, threats that cetaceans face around the world and possible solutions to various problems, was a very valuable bonus for all participating guests. We all learned a lot and were very honoured to meet these wonderful people!
It was a fantastic week with lots of fun, interesting facts, beautiful nature and a bunch of great people that came together to share their love of whales. Thanks again to all the amazing lecturers, especially to Erich Hoyt for being part of this extraordinary experience; to Laki Tours for being so conscientious around the orcas and for providing very responsible yet astonishing whale watches to us and finally to Alexa and Cathy from Discover the World for making this amazing event happen! It was a blast!
We use cookies on our website to give you the best possible experience and help with our efforts to save whales and dolphins. They are also used to personalise advertising and analyse site traffic.
Choose “Accept” to enable all cookies or use the settings option to find out more and choose which cookies to allow.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
_GRECAPTCHA
5 months 27 days
This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
AWSALBCORS
7 days
This cookie is managed by Amazon Web Services and is used for load balancing.
CookieLawInfoConsent
1 year
Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie.
crumb
session
Squarespace sets this cookie to prevent cross-site request forgery (CSRF).
datadome
session
This is a security cookie set by Force24 to detect BOTS and malicious traffic.
PHPSESSID
session
This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.
server_session_id
session
This cookie is set by Twitch to help in load balancing and optimizing the visitor experience.
viewed_cookie_policy
1 year
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin to store whether or not the user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__Host-GAPS
2 years
This cookie allows the website to identify a user and provide enhanced functionality and personalisation.
IDE
1 year 24 days
Google DoubleClick IDE cookies are used to store information about how the user uses the website to present them with relevant ads and according to the user profile.
muc_ads
1 year 1 month 4 days
Twitter set this cookie to collect visitor navigation data to optimise ad relevance.
NID
6 months
NID cookie, set by Google, is used for advertising purposes; to limit the number of times the user sees an ad, to mute unwanted ads, and to measure the effectiveness of ads.
personalization_id
1 year 1 month 4 days
Twitter sets this cookie to integrate and share features for social media and also store information about how the user uses the website, for tracking and targeting.
test_cookie
15 minutes
The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
5 months 27 days
A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface.
YSC
session
YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages.
yt-remote-connected-devices
never
YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video.
yt-remote-device-id
never
YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video.
yt.innertube::nextId
never
This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
yt.innertube::requests
never
This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Cookie
Duration
Description
_ga
1 year 1 month 4 days
The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors.
_ga_*
1 year 1 month 4 days
Google Analytics sets this cookie to store and count page views.
_gat_UA-*
1 minute
Google Analytics sets this cookie for user behaviour tracking.
_gcl_au
3 months
Provided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services.
_gid
1 day
Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress
30 minutes
Hotjar sets this cookie to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie.
_hjFirstSeen
30 minutes
Hotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user.
_tq_id.TV-81812718-1.5b39
1 year 1 month 4 days
This cookie is set by TVSquared to measure impressions, reach and outcomes across linear and digital TV.
AnalyticsSyncHistory
1 month
Linkedin set this cookie to store information about the time a sync took place with the lms_analytics cookie.
CONSENT
2 years
YouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data.
DotMetrics.DeviceKey
1 year
Dotmetrics sets this cookie for the implementation of the technical part of the MOSS measurement.
DotMetrics.UniqueUserIdentityCookie
1 year
Dotmetrics sets this cookie for the implementation of the technical part of the MOSS measurement.
referrer_url
30 minutes
This cookie is used to detect how the user reached the website by registering their last URL-address.
vuid
1 year 1 month 4 days
Vimeo installs this cookie to collect tracking information by setting a unique ID to embed videos to the website.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Cookie
Duration
Description
__cf_bm
30 minutes
This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
api_token
1 year 1 month 1 day
This cookie is set by Twitch to display the embedded video and the services required to function the same.
bcookie
1 year
LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID.
bscookie
1 year
LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website.
li_gc
5 months 27 days
Linkedin set this cookie for storing visitor's consent regarding using cookies for non-essential purposes.
lidc
1 day
LinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection.
S
1 hour
Used by Yahoo to provide ads, content or analytics.
UserMatchHistory
1 month
LinkedIn sets this cookie for LinkedIn Ads ID syncing.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Cookie
Duration
Description
AWSALB
7 days
AWSALB is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target.
unique_id
1 year 1 month 1 day
This cookie is set by Powr.io to preserve user states across page requests.
unique_id_durable
1 year 1 month 1 day
Cookie that is used to register whether the user is logged in. This allows the website owner to make parts of the website inaccessible, based on the user's log-in status.