Many humpback whales come to Skjálfandaflói every year, as many visitors to whale watching companies in Húsavík know. On an annual basis whale conference The Whale Museum in Húsavík and the Research Center of the University of Iceland, which was held earlier in sumar information about the number of gray whales that experts have counted on Skjálfand in recent years was revealed. A special research project on counting grayling is underway in Húsavík, where staff and students at the Research Center of the University of Iceland in Húsavík are working. The project consists of an analysis of photographs of wrecks on Skjálfand. According to dr. Marianne Rasmussen from the Research Center and the manager of the project, 172 different whales have visited Skjálfand once or more between 2001-2015. The killer whale population in the North Atlantic is estimated to be around 1.000 animals. That means that about 17% of the gray heron population has made its way to Skjálfand. Due to overfishing in the last century, the species is in danger of extinction and it is difficult to estimate how the population will fare. This was among the things that appeared in Marianne's talk about research on whales at Skjálfand.
