Scottish Government Demonstration Strategy: Trialling Methods for Tracking the Fine Scale Underwater Movements of Marine Mammals in Areas of Marine Renewable Energy Development

Scottish Marine and Freshwater Science Vol 7 No 14

The Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) for wave and tidal renewable energy generation in Scottish Waters (Faber, Maunsell & Metoc, 2007) identified a need to evaluate the potential interactions between marine renewables and marine wildlife as a matter of priority. In order to study the fine scale movements of animals close to a tidal energy device and potentially monitor collisions, monitoring systems are required with the ability to track animals with a high spatial and temporal resolution and over a range of several tens of metres from the turbine for a period of several months. This report details the progress of Phase 1 of the Scottish Government Demonstration Strategy (SGDS) project: Developing and testing methodologies for measuring fine scale marine mammal movements around tidal energy devices. The approach considered here comprises three sensor systems: Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM), Active Acoustics Monitoring (AAM) and Video Surveillance. Whilst each of these systems have been used to study marine animal movements, their combined application in a high tidal energy environment requires development and testing.