Recently, the project manager of the museum, Huld Hafliðadóttir, attended a conference in Mexico organized by the International Committee on Protected Areas of Marine Mammals: International Committee on Marine Mammal Protected Areas. There, Huld took part in the conference program on behalf of the museum and the Research Center of the University of Iceland in Húsavík, but Huld has studied such protected areas in cooperation with other research institutions. These are areas that are important habitats for whales and other marine mammals, whether they are feeding grounds or their mating and rearing grounds, which must be protected from human encroachment.
Session of the conference in Puerto Vallarta
In most places in the world, where whales can be found over certain periods of time, and especially where whale watching is practiced, you can find some kind of regulation or rules of engagement of this kind, in the form of boat number and speed limits, but also a certain distance is maintained when approach the animals.
Map of the areas already marked as critical marine mammal habitat
Participants from 14 countries attended the conference and it is on the smaller side compared to many other international conferences, but over 100 people attended it, at the Sheraton Conference Hotel in Puerto Vallarta. It was then discussed what has been achieved in working with protected areas and what has unfortunately gone wrong in the experience of various countries with such areas, various devices and tools made available for the organization of protected areas, in addition to the experience of responsible whale watching (e. passive whale watching) was presented . But responsible whale watching is about meeting the animals being watched on the animal's terms. Then you tend to go out to certain areas and kill with a machine and wait for the animals to show themselves, instead of the chase, to one or more individuals, which seems more often than not to be the case, since nature tends to be forgotten in the chase and speed . Then the experience was that the animals were generally calmer and the visitors' experience deeper if such a method was used, and more often than not the animals showed interest in the boats when the boats were stationary for a while. The visitors' experience is not only limited to the number of photographs they take home, but it is a unique experience that is difficult to put into words.
Photo: Puerto Vallarta tours
Then Huld gave a talk about the history of the Whale Museum and the history and development of whale watching in Skjálfand, and the educational work of the museum attracted special attention. The workshop at which Huld presented the museum was about different educational methods and how to reach the local community through education.
