Scotland: National Rural Network
Connecting Rural Scotland - Promoting Rural Growth

WiSE (Wildlife Safe) is a UK wide course and accreditation programme for boat operators and offers practical best practice advice on handling a vessel in the vicinity of wildlife. The one-day course also includes information on species ID and the law. Attendance on the course results in a 3-year accreditation to the WiSE scheme (www.wisescheme.org).

The scheme is aimed at operators of small to medium sized commercial passenger carrying vessels, and recognises that viable marine wildlife tourism can be developed for the benefit of local communities, tourists and marine wildlife alike. It is relevant to operators offering dedicated marine wildlife viewing trips as well as companies who simply view marine wildlife on a more opportunistic basis.

The day is delivered by a local trainer with considerable experience of running wildlife-watching boat activities and aims to build on people's experiences rather than pure teaching. It is therefore an enjoyable and interesting day. This is the fourth year that the courses have been run in Scotland.