The online Adventure WiSe course is part of the national WiSe Scheme suite of professional practitioner courses. The aim of the WiSe Scheme has always been to promote responsible wildlife-watching, through training, accreditation and raising awareness amongst boat operators, adventure/wildlife guides, dive boat operators, etc.

The Adventure WiSe course has been developed to be the WiSe Scheme professional standard for practitioners offering outdoor activities to:

Sea kayakers
Wild swimmers
Coasteering practitioners
Stand-up paddle boarders
Snorkellers
Coastal rock climbers
Coastal walkers

to help them minimise disturbance to marine and coastal wildlife.

The modular course will be delivered over two consecutive evenings (two hours each evening) and will be run by our highly experienced instructors. Course content will focus on interacting safely with whales & dolphins (cetaceans), basking sharks, seals and seabirds, and specifically how to minimise disturbance of these species, as well as rocky shore and foraging good practice.

The course will be structured around five key messages relating to the following topics:

Seasonality & Location
Group size
Distance
Time
Safety

Timetable:

Each of the sessions will be a mixture of presentational material followed by an opportunity for questions and short quizzes on the material just presented. During the presentations you will be muted, but able to put thoughts and questions into the chat window. There will be another WiSe trainer answering questions as they appear in the chat who will bring key questions to the attention of the presenter in the Q&A session at the end. The proposed course schedule is:

Mon Jan 15th 19.00 – 21.00

Welcome & introduction to WiSe
The five key messages
Marine wildlife legislation
Seals & otters
Basking shark

Tues Jan 16th 19.00 – 21.00

Cetaceans
Shoreline – focus on rocky shore
Seabirds
Blue Health
Assessment based on the five key messages
Feedback

The final session will involve a slightly longer set of assessment questions based around the five key messages and the material presented throughout the two evening sessions.

WiSe instructors recognise that attending two sessions on back to back nights may be tricky. However, this is a certified training course, so attendance is required at both sessions in order to receive the Adventure WiSe approval.

Attendees who pay the single attendance fee and attend both sessions will:

Become Adventure WiSe approved.
Commit to abide by not only national and local laws on wildlife conservation and disturbance avoidance, but also the WiSe Scheme Codes of Conduct, in addition to any local wildlife-watching codes.
Receive digital versions of the WiSe Codes of Conduct, a personalised certificate of attendance PDF, a waterproof WiSe Adventure sticker for their boat/craft, and electronic versions of the WiSe Adventure logo for promotional materials if required.
Be listed on our approved WiSe operator pages (if you provide your details during registration for the course).

WiSe recommends that after three years, all approved individuals at the Adventure WiSe level then undertake a Master WiSe course to upgrade their level of membership.

If there are more than 3 registrants from one company, please contact info@wisescheme.org for a discount code prior to booking.

See www.wisescheme.org for further information on levels, and to access the contact form for any follow up queries.

Adventure WiSe Training Course - England and Wales