2004 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA5 Technical Report - Marine mammals (North Sea)
This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA5) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). Eight marine mammal species are known to occur regularly in this area: grey seal, harbour seal, harbour porpoise, white-beaked dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, Atlantic white-sided dolphin, killer whale, and minke whale. Long-finned pilot whales and Risso's dolphins are regularly seen in waters around Shetland. There are occasional at-sea records of at least a further five cetacean species (humpback whale, fin whale, sperm whale, striped dolphin and short-beaked common dolphin) and four pinniped species (hooded seal, bearded seal, ringed seal and walrus).
dataset
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal
- The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change SEA process. The site is run and managed by BGS on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Many files can be downloaded directly from this website. Those that are too large to download can be ordered via the website for postal delivery from BGS.
British Geological Survey
:
BGS_SEA_69
English
Biota
Environment
Oceans
Environment
Oceans
SeaDataNet Parameter Discovery Vocabulary:
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0:
SeaVoX Vertical Co-ordinate Coverages:
Species distribution
Free:
-4.00,
55.80,
1.00,
61.50
publication: 2004-04-01
2004-01-01
-
2004-01-01
British Geological Survey (BGS)
Paul Henni
Murchison House, West Mains Road,
Edinburgh,
EH9 3LA,
UK
tel: +44 (0)131 667 1000
email:
offshoredata@bgs.ac.uk
Role: custodian
Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)
Admiralty Way,
London,
SW1A 2HD,
UK
tel: +44 0300 060 4000
email:
enquiries@decc.gsi.gov.uk
Role: originator
Data Quality
Report prepared by the Sea Mammal Research Unit, St Andrews University as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme. There is extensive information on the distribution and abundance of grey and harbour seals around Britain from annual aerial surveys of breeding colonies and from satellite telemetry studies. There is also extensive information on cetacean distribution in the North Sea from a number of summer sightings surveys (SCANS-94, NASS-89, NILS-95). Estimates of abundance are available from these surveys for some species. There are also many records from year-round surveys by the European Seabirds at Sea Consortium (ESAS) since 1979, from cetacean observations made during seismic surveys from 1996, and sightings by voluntary observers compiled by the Sea Watch Foundation. Acoustic studies using towed hydrophone arrays, pop-up sonobuoys and the US Navy's passive underwater monitoring system (SOSUS) have been used to monitor the distribution and in some cases the density of fin whales, sperm whales and dolphins in the wider area (Swift et al 2002).
Minimal Distance:
5 http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/ISO_19139_Schemas/resources/uom/gmxUom.xml#m
Constraints
Metadata about metadata
aba64100-c139-4de3-e044-0003ba6f30bd
British Geological Survey (BGS)
Mary Mowat
tel: +44 (0)131 667 1000
email:
offshoredata@bgs.ac.uk
Role: point of contact
2011-08-30