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Visitor publish from Eilidh O’Brien, Employees Scientist, Whales of Iceland Museum
Appropriately situated in Reykjavík’s harbour district, Whales of Iceland is the most important museum devoted to cetaceans in Europe. A lot of the house inside is devoted to life-sized fashions of the 23 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises which were sighted within the waters round Iceland all through historical past, some quite common whereas others are very uncommon. When the museum was based these fashions had been the principle focus of the exhibition: an opportunity for guests to expertise the true dimension of those gigantic marine animals, and to study slightly about every of the species on show. Nevertheless, this focus is now evolving and Zooniverse is ready to play an vital half.
Iceland is a hotspot for cetaceans – and so, additionally for cetacean researchers! Some exceptional discoveries have been made right here within the final decade, from the primary recordings of humpback whales singing of their feeding grounds over winter, to the bizarre antagonistic interactions between killer whales and long-finned pilot whales. We wish to spotlight this at Whales of Iceland in order that our museum isn’t just a spot to study cetaceans themselves, but in addition how scientists research these fascinating and complicated animals, what this analysis has uncovered, and all of the issues that we nonetheless have no idea!
Along with studying concerning the analysis occurring right here in Iceland, we wish to give guests the chance to participate in some actual scientific tasks. So, because of Zooniverse, our latest exhibit will embrace a citizen science station the place anybody can have a shot at being a scientist! We’ll function a spread of Zooniverse tasks for guests to select from, giving them quite a lot of totally different marine mammal species and totally different facets of wildlife ecology to study.
Our goal is to make Whales of Iceland a extra interactive and thought-provoking expertise. We hope that our museum will proceed to supply guests the prospect to marvel on the dimension and wonder of those fantastic creatures, but in addition to have interaction with the pure world in methods they might not have earlier than, and to really feel that they haven’t simply discovered, however found.
This collaboration remains to be in its early phases. With the inexperienced gentle from Zooniverse Co-PI Dr. Laura Trouille, we have now already launched a scaled-down model of what we hope the ultimate exhibit can be, and it has been a very promising success! Museums present an ideal platform for citizen science; we’re a small museum comparatively talking, however our footfall in peak season could be greater than 400 individuals in a day. That’s numerous potential citizen scientists! In ecology, we might name this a mutualistic symbiosis – or, in different phrases, everybody wins! Our museum friends can present priceless contributions to scientific tasks everywhere in the world, whereas on the similar time gaining first-hand perception into the lifetime of a whale researcher.
We’re so excited to develop and increase our collaboration with Zooniverse, in addition to different citizen science initiatives. Our completed analysis exhibit can be unveiled very quickly – watch this house!
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