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Here you´ll find news from The Wild North partners and our latest project activities. Wild North annual partner meeting 28 September 2011 The Wild North annual partner meeting will be held in Isafjordur on Iceland 1st-3rd of November 2011 Northern Nature Guides Seminar 20 September 2011 Wednesday 21. September 2011 NNG (Northern Nature Guides SA) will hold a seminar in Balsfjord, Norway to show the natural qualities of this part of Norway. Birds, mammals, flowers, landscape and Aurora borealis will be part of the themes highlighted.
The Wild North meeting and seminar in Iceland's Westfjords in October 04 October 2010 The Wild North project will host its 4th partner meeting in Ísafjörður, Súðavík and Bolungarvík (Westfjords) on the 11. - 15. of October. The meeting is followed by a seminar on wildlife guiding and interpretation called "Getting your message across". See meeting agenda below:
Free evening
Please note that this is a draft. Venues and time schedule might still change a bit. Effects of whale watching on humpback whales will be studied in Nuuk fjord 27 April 2010
Photo: Humpback whale in Nuuk Fjord (Fernando Ugarte) A new study will focus on the effect of whale watching on the humpback whales in Nuuk fjord, Greenland. As in many other places, whale watching in Greenland is a growing activity. A study carried out during 2007 and 2008 showed that the feeding dives of humpback whales in Nuuk were shorter in the presence of whale watching boats. This summer, the research will be carried one step forward to test if whales are less affected when boat drivers follow a simple set of rules when approaching the animals. By measuring time periods that whales spend between each time they come to the surface to breath, biologists will search for differences in surface behaviour of whales under the influence of whale watching boats following the proposed code of conduct, whale watching boats not following these guidelines and whales under no influence of boats. The ultimate goal is to produce a set of guidelines for whale watching that results in minimal disturbance to the whales.
Funding from The Westfjord's Economic Growth Agreement 13 April 2010
New remote cameras used for wildlife research 13 April 2010  The Arctic Fox Centre just bought some remote cameras which take photos of animals or other moving objects. These cameras will be used for preparing a web camera for The Arctic Fox Centre and to monitor bird nest predation in a research of the Natural History Institute. The first results are promising and we are now heading for the right location for fox camera and waiting for the birds to arrive on breeding grounds. The other members of The Westfjords cluster have been busy during the winter, making plans for next summer, preparing experimental wildlife tours and working through the results of last summer. Amongst the projects for the summer is to map the wildlife „hot spots“ of the region as well as getting an idea of the tourist´s expectations and experiences regarding wildlife tours. The Wild North was introduced in a Lunch Lecture on Friday, March 26th at the University Centre of Vestfjords. Many peple came to the lecture and we got a lot of questions and chat afterwards. The Arctic Fox Centre opens in June 13 April 2010
Studying the effect of bird watching on the birds 18 March 2010
Black Guillemot (Cepphus grylle) must be counted near breeding colonies at night early in the season in order to get a correct number. A lot of interest in TWN research 02 March 2010
Photo: Playful seal at Illugastaðir in Vatnsnes peninsula (Helgi Guðjónsson)
Birdlife in Spákonufellshöfði - Iceland 05 February 2010
Photo: Eider duck nest In Spákonufellshöfði in Skagaströnd, Skagaströnd Municipality and the Natural Research Centre of North-western Iceland are studying the effect of bird watching on the birdlife in the area.
About Nuuk Tourism 01 February 2010
Biology Conference in Iceland 24 November 2009
Photo: Photographing arctic foxes in Hornstrandir Reserve (The Arctic Fox Centre) The Icelandic Biology Conference was held in Reykjavík, 6th and 7th of November. The Wild North's Westfjord's cluster including The Arctic Fox Centre, The University Research Centre of the Westfjords and Westfjords Natural History Institute had several posters and lectures, where research projects and results were introduced Tourism Strategy Planning in the Westfjords 24 November 2009
Photo: A curious arctic fox in Hornstrandir (The Arctic Fox Centre) The Travel Industry Association of the Westfjords is now undertaking a strategic planning process. Three meetings were held in different sites of the Westfjords in the same week of early November, where all locals were invited to take part of the strategy planning and future missions discussed. The work is being led by Sigurður Atlason, the director of the association, Jón Páll Halldórsson Westfjords Tourism Office , Ásgerður Þorleifsdóttir Westfjords business Development Company and Jón Jónsson, The cultural council of Westfjords. The results of the meetings will be collected by Ásgerður and used for further work on strategy planning and further developing of the tourism in the Westfjords. Westfjords - From the summer 24 November 2009
Photo: A film Crew in Hornstrandir (The Arctic Fox Centre) The Arctic Fox Center – has mostly been working in Hornstrandir Nature Reserve, the only “safe place” for arctic foxes in Iceland. Last summer we continued the research project regarding tourist effect on arctic foxes in Hornvik. The study area includes the three valleyes of the cliff Hornbjarg as well as the coastline, usually 6 territories with 13-16 den sites. This cliff probably hosts the highest arctic fox density in Iceland and perhaps widerþ The area was visited for one week in June, two weeks in July and five days in August. We also provided consultancy and guidance for filming crews and photographers who were looking for arctic foxes. More of the summer´s field work on our website. Westtours are now planning new tours for next summer: A 5 nights hiking in Hornstrandir including 2 days in Hornvík, where we will specialy look for the artic fox and all the birds in and around Cliff Hornbjarg. The hike will end at Hesteyri. This tour is specialy set up for real nature lovers. Last summer was pretty busy for Borea Adventures. In the spring the company did many backcountry skiing trips before doing few hiking and wildlife trips in Hornstrandir Nature Reserve on the sailing yacht Aurora. The area is a true gem when it comes to wildlife exploration with millions of birds, curious seals and whales and of course the arctic fox. All their guests returned home very happy with good memories of their time in Iceland. July seems to be their slowest month for some reason. Generally it´s the high tourism season in Iceland. Their mixture of sailing, sea kayaking and general exploring in East Greenland has been a great success. They spent all August there last year. Next year is already booking up quite fast for Borea Adventures and August in East Greenland is fully booked. July is slow where they have few multi adventure and wildlife trips on schedule. They hope that will change in the coming months. Photo: A sailing boat outside Hornstrandir (The Arctic Fox Centre) Photo Identification Week in Húsavík in June 2010 19 October 2009 The Húsavík cluster had a meeting on the 19th of October where they discussed their cluster strategies for 2010.
Stefán Guðmundsson from Gentle Giants Whale Watching, Erla Sigurðardóttir from Húsavík Whale Museum and Þórunn Harðardóttir from Northsailing Whale Whatching. The photo is taken by Marianne Rasmussen from Húsavík Research Centre. One of next year´s objectives is to have a special TWN even called "Photo Identification Week" in the middle of June 2010, in connection with Húsavík´s annual "Sólarhátíð" (Sun festival). To participate in this event guests on whale watching tours would take photos of whales during their tour and then bring the photos back to the Húsavík Whale Museum, where they would compare them to a database of existing photos in an attempt to indentify individuals. This event is a part of a series of events taking place under the name of The Wild North in the year 2010.
Whales are for example identified by their flukes, but each fluke has a certain shape and pattern. Successful meeting and seminar in The Faroe Islands 15 October 2009
Groupwork at TWN meeting The Wild North had a meeting in Tórshavn on the Faroe Islands from the 5th of October until the 9th of October 2009. Per Ivar writes from Kvænangen 24 September 2009
Spindaj have in 2009, in cooperation with Norwegian Institute of Natural Research, (NINA) continued the birdlife monitoring on the island Spildra and in the nature reserve Bekkamyra in Kvænangen. Data from this survey will be compared with monitoring done here in 2007 and 2008. We have also done some preliminary work in connection to the planned feeding station/photohide for eagles on Spildra. In addition we have mapped the birdlife on the neighbouring islands Skorpa, Nøklan and Høyholman, which are a landscape conservation area. The islands will be included in the bird watching project and will also be monitored in the following years. The monitoring data will be important in the study to detect any negative effect of increasing tourism. The survey was done in beginning of June and then both from boat and from the shore. The work has been supported by Innovation Norway and Kvænangen municipality.
 Seminar and meeting in Faroe Islands in October 17 September 2009
Dr. John Hull and Carol Patterson have worked together on numerous tourism projects in the North Atlantic. In 2002, they were both contracted to deliver a Nature-based Tourism Business Course for five years as part of the efforts of the Canadian Tourism Commission, Parks Canada, and the regional tourism industry associations in Atlantic Canada to promote environmentally friendly nature-based tourism in the region. Over 75 businesses participated in the program. They also recently completed the tourism plan for Northeast Iceland. On the 6th of October The Wild North partners will have their annual partner meeting in Thorshavn. Both meeting and seminar are sponsored by NORA (Nordisk Atlantsamarbejde) and NATA (North Atlantic Tourism Association) Photo: Whale watching in Skjálfandi Bay (Húsavík NORA supports The Wild North seminars 02 July 2009
Generous support from NATA 31 March 2009
NATA - North Atlantic Tourism Association just announced a support of 100.000 DKK to TWN activities in 2009. The grant will be used to support partners from Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands to participate in next October's seminar (Sustainable development of Wildlife Tourism) and partner meeting. TWN partners thank NATA for its generous support. Photo: Partner meeting at Húsavík in 2008. Partner meeting at Húsavík Iceland 11 December 2008
Húsavík Research Centre hosted a partner meeting for all partners of The Wild North in Húsavík Iceland on the 9th and 10th of December. The 25 meeting participants were from research institutions, tourism companies and official entities in Iceland, Norway, Faroe Islands and Greenland. Special guests were Fredrik Christiansen biologist, who introduces results from his research of the effect of whale watching tourism on bottle nosed dolphins at the south coast of Zanzibar and Deborah Benham from Wild at Heart Eco Holidays in Scotland, who is a special consultant for The Wild North project. At the meeting the project outline and aims of The Wild North were discussed and a management board selected to work further with the concept and prepare international funding applications. The management board members are:
The group also visited the Whale museum at Húsavík and took a field trip to Lake Mývatn where they met Yule lads at Dimmuborgir, tasted delicious waffles at the Cowshed Café, took a relaxing bath in the Mývatn Nature Baths and ended with a traditional Icelandic Christmas Buffet at Sel-Hótel Mývatn.
The Wild North project would like to thank all the hosts at Húsavík and Mývatn for their warm welcome. Special thanks go to Fosshótel Húsavík, Atthing, Gamli Baukur, The Whale Museum, our guide Illugi Jón at Mývatnsstofa, Mývatn Nature Baths, Bruggsmiðjan and last but not least our fantastic driver Rúnar from Fjallasýn. Wild North Pilot Research in Iceland 06 November 2008
The summer of 2008, The Icelandic Seal Center took part in a pilot research project for Wild North in Iceland. The project was called Ecotourism: Effects on wildlife behaviour. The project’s main objective was to find out if increasing ecotourism in Iceland is effecting wildlife behaviour in natural surroundings. The project was a cooperation between The Icelandic Seal Center, looking at seals in Illugastaðir, The Húsavík Research Center, which looked at whales in Skjálfandi Bay and The Arctic Fox Centre, looking at arctic foxes in Hornstrandir. The project was supported by The Student Innovation Fund. The Seal Center’s objectives were to:
The research area was Illugastaðir farm in Vatnsnes Peninsula, which hosts seal colonies on 3 different sea stacks 100 – 200 metres of-shore. Seals were also counted at different colonies around the peninsula such as Svalbarð and Hindisvík. The research’s conclusion is that tourists in Illugastaðir do not seem to disturb the seals in the local seal colonies to any great extent, not in the short run at least. The reasons for that are speculated to be a few, but the main reason is probably that tourist can not get closer to the seals then those 100 m separating the seal watching location from the colonies. This fact is a huge advantage for Illugastaðir in their quest to develop a sustainable wildlife location, for both men and animals. These results do not address the long term affect of tourism in the area, therefore a 3 year research will be started at Illugastaðir in the summer of 2009, in connection with the Wild North Project.
Partner meeting at Húsavík 9th - 10th of December 22 October 2008  A Wild North partner meeting will be held at Húsavík Iceland on the 9th - 10th of December. The meeting's objective is to finalize the project outline and decide on the project's next steps. The meeting is hosted by The Húsavík Research Centre. | 
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Monday, February 22th the Arctic Fox Centre signed a contract with The Westfjords Economic Growth Agreement on a project called „Wildlife as an economic resource".
This will be the first summer of The Arctic Fox Centre’s educating exhibition since we will open for the first time on June 12th.
Spindaj has in the period 2007-2009, in cooperation with Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) monitored the birdlife on the island Spildra and in the nature reserve Bekkamyra in Kvænangen. In 2009 we included monitoring of the neighbouring islands Skorpa, Nøklan and Høyholman, which are a landscape conservation area. The islands will be included in the bird watching project and will also be monitored in the following years as a control area. The monitoring until now has been very useful to tell which areas (also species of birds) that will be suitable for human activities.
Almost 300 people from all over the world showed interest in becoming seal research volunteers in Vatnsnes peninsula next summer. Only 6 hours after the advertisement was published, more then 150 people had already applied. Sandra M. Granquist seal research specialist is thrilled with the response and is now busy going over the applications.
On the 7th - 8th of October, The Wild North will host a workshop/seminiar in the Faroe Islands (Hotel Foroyar). The workshop, which is called "Handle with care" is built on a previous Northern Periphery project called Nature Based Tourism. Its objectives is to teach participants how to run sustainble nature based tourism companies. The seminar's instructors are Carol Patterson from Kalahari Managment and Dr. John Hull from John Hull Associates.
NORA (North Atlantic Cooperation) has announced that it will support The Wild North seminars in 2009 - 2011 with 350.000 DKK. The seminars' objectives are to enhance sustainable awareness within the tourism industry and to help participants to market their products in an efficient way. The first seminiar will be held in the Faroe Islands next October. 
