Description
The report describes how fine-scale harbour seal usage maps around Orkney and the north coast of Scotland, UK, can be used and interpreted, the caveats and limitations, and methodology used to produce them (Appendix A). 1. Harbour seal movement data from telemetry tagged seals, collected between 2003 and 2015, were combined with terrestrial count data. The most recent year that count data were collected from each onshore location was used, which ranged from 2008 to 2015. Population-level species distribution maps and associated confidence intervals were produced around Orkney and the north coast of Scotland at a resolution of 0.6 km x 0.6 km. Seasonal usage was investigated (Appendix B). There were a number of data and numerical constraints that meant robust seasonal usage maps could not be produced. To address these constraints, recommendations of telemetry and terrestrial count data collection and further analysis are made.