Three humpback whales were spotted near the old whaling station in Suðureyri in Tálknafjörður in the West Fjords last weekend. Moreover, large whales have been seen in the neighboring Patreksfjörður, also not a common fjord for whales to enter.
Whale watching. Archive photo by Páll Stefánsson.
“We were on a small 12-foot boat and saw the whales. It is relative novelty to see them here; large whales were first spotted in the fjord last year,” Guðlaugur J. Albertsson, an employee of the Tálknafjörður aquafarm, told Morgunblaðið.
“They have been spotted in Ísafjarðardjúp for many years but we haven’t heard of them in this territory until now. There are usually five to six whales in a school,” said Sverrir D. Halldórsson, an employee of the Icelandic Marine Research Institute’s whale division.
“The humpback swims closest to the shore of the larger whales. The reason they are increasingly entering fjords is that there is more food there than before,” Sverrir explained.
“The number of whales has gone up somewhat in the past years. We have numbers from 2007, which was when the latest count took place. The next one is scheduled for 2015,” Sverrir concluded.
Click here to read about another recent incident of large whales entering a fjord.
ESA
