Avoidance of wind farms by harbour seals is limited to pile driving activities
DJFR, GH, VMJ and BM were funded by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as part of their Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme. DT and GH were also funded by NERC/Defra EBAO NE/J004243/1. ELJ was funded under Scottish Government grant MMSS001/01. This work wa...
Published in: | Journal of Applied Ecology |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
Other Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2016
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10023/8856 https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12678 |
Summary: | DJFR, GH, VMJ and BM were funded by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as part of their Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme. DT and GH were also funded by NERC/Defra EBAO NE/J004243/1. ELJ was funded under Scottish Government grant MMSS001/01. This work was also supported by National Capability funding from the Natural Environment Research Council to SMRU (grant no. SMRU1001). Tags and their deployment in the Thames in 2006 and The Wash were funded by DECC. Tags and their deployment in the Thames in 2012 were commissioned by Zoological Society London, with funding from BBC Wildlife Fund and Sita Trust. 1. As part of global efforts to reduce dependence on carbon-based energy sources there has been a rapid increase in the installation of renewable energy devices. The installation and operation of these devices can result in conflicts with wildlife. In the marine environment, mammals may avoid wind farms that are under construction or operating. Such avoidance may lead to more time spent travelling or displacement from key habitats. A paucity of data on at-sea movements of marine mammals around wind farms limits our understanding of the nature of their potential impacts. 2. Here, we present the results of a telemetry study on harbour seals Phoca vitulina in The Wash, south-east England, an area where wind farms are being constructed using impact pile driving. We investigated whether seals avoid wind farms during operation, construction in its entirety, or during piling activity. The study was carried out using historical telemetry data collected prior to any wind farm development and telemetry data collected in 2012 during the construction of one wind farm and the operation of another. 3. Within an operational wind farm, there was a close-to-significant increase in seal usage compared to prior to wind farm development. However, the wind farm was at the edge of a large area of increased usage, so the presence of the wind farm was unlikely to be the cause. 4. There was no ... |
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