Dr. Marianne Rasmussen, one of the founders of the whale shark project, says that there have been many whale shark sightings in and around Skjálfandaflói in the last few days.
The Steypireydar Project is a research project at the University of Iceland that was launched in 2008 by Maria Iversen and Marianne Rasmussen. The goal of the project has been to increase awareness of whales in danger of extinction using different methods.
We still have limited knowledge
It is stated on the university’s website that, for example, photographic analysis of individual whales, sound recordings, gene samples and behavioral and dietary records were used.
“We still have very limited knowledge about the largest animal on earth, the osprey. We don’t know where they go, where they spend most of the year or where they spawn,” says Marianne .
Some of the whales return to Skjálfandafló every year, while others return several years apart.
Photo/Submitted
Identify individuals with photographs
She says that you can recognize individual whales by taking photographs of them.
For example, a whale was seen in Skjálfandaflói in the last few days, which was last seen there in 2008, 18 years ago. Marianne says he can’t know where this person has spent all these years.
Another animal that was recently seen has not been seen in Skjálfandaflói since 12 years ago, in 2014.
Researchers have also recently observed a gray whale that first came to Skjálfandaflói in 2009. This is the animal’s ninth summer in the bay.
