Monday, April 27, 2015

The Wildlife of Iceland

Because Iceland was not inhabited until 800 AD, and it is a volcanic island, not much wildlife can live there.  A small number of reindeer live wild on the island.  There is little threat to them - the speed limits are low and they have no predators on the island.  For many years, no rodents lived there, no cats either.  That has changed, but not to a great degree.

There are more birds.  Not as many as other places, but some.  We saw hundreds of Graylag Geese, many Whooping Swans (didn't realize there was something other than Whooping Cranes and Whooping Cough), Oyster catchers, and lots of ducks.  We did not see any puffins (I am not certain they had come from the North Atlantic to land yet), but we saw plenty of gulls.  There were also some songbirds, but we could not identify them.

There were plenty of farm animals - sheep, cows, and horses.  I hear there are wild horses on the island, but we would not have known.  They all looked tame to us.  We saw many varieties of sheep - black, white, horned - but the horses are all the same.  They are the purest strain of horses in the world, and they have no diseases.  Once a horse leaves the island, it is not allowed to return; and the horses have never been bred with other horses.

Although the wildlife in Iceland is not particularly plentiful, we found it fun to observe those animals that are there.

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