2004 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA5 Distribution and movements of harbour seals around Orkney, Shetland and the Wash
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). 30 harbour seals in Orkney and Shetland and 10 in the Wash were captured and satellite tagged between October 2003 and March 2004. Each seal was tracked for an average of 150 days. As anticipated from initial satellite tagging in St Andrews Bay animals were found to travel much further to forage than previously anticipated. A high degree of individual variation in foraging behaviour of animals was found in Orkney and Shetland. The distance travelled to forage ranged between 5 and 150 km. In the Wash foraging behaviour was more consistent, the majority of foraging occurring between 75 and 120 km from haul-outs. The movement data received from the tags, combined with information on the number of animals counted during aerial surveys at haul-outs have been used to predict at-sea usage of the populations in question.
dataset
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/sea/home.html
name: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal
description: 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.
function: download
BGS_SEA_74
British Geological Survey
eng
OGP
urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326
http://www.offshore-sea.org.uk/site/index.php
biota
environment
oceans
revision
2011-03-25
Species distribution
publication
2008-06-01
publication
2008-06-01
-4
1
61.5
55.8
revision
2006-01-01
2003-10-01
2004-03-01
publication
2004-01-01
notPlanned
This report was prepared by the Sea Mammal Research Unit, St Andrews as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme. SRDLs were deployed on 15 harbour seals in Orkney, 15 in Shetland and 10 in the Wash, between October 2003 and March 2004. Two deployments were made at each study site to improve data coverage over the year. Animals were captured at haul-out sites or in the water near haul-outs. The SRDLs were attached to the back of the neck behind the head so that the aerial would be abour water when animals surfaced at sea. The tags were attached using a fast setting epoxy resin. Data on location, diving depth, swimming speed, and proportion of time hauled out on land were transmitted using the Argos satellite system. The data were stored and displayed through a suite of programs developed at SMRU.
The SEAs data were produced as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme; Crown Copyright, all rights reserved. The DECC SEA must be acknowledged in any maps or publications that make use of the data. All the data files are freely available to the public. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the 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. BGS (NERC) has been contracted by DECC to publish SEA datasets on its behalf. All intellectual property rights (including , without limitation, copyrights, database rights and all other rights which subsist or may at any time in the future subsist in the Dataset(s)) in the Dataset(s) ('Intellectual Property Rights') are owned by DECC (formerly the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform). BGS has been authorised by DECC to use SEA datasets for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit basis'. BGS has been authorised by DECC to pass on SEA datasets to third parties so that they can use them for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit' basis.
British Geological Survey (BGS)
Murchison House, West Mains Road
Edinburgh
EH9 3LA
UK
+44 (0)131 667 1000
custodian
Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)
Admiralty Way
London
SW1A 2HD
UK
+44 0300 060 4000
+44 (0) 1823 284077
originator
British Geological Survey (BGS)
+44 (0)131 667 1000
+44 (0)131 668 4140
pointOfContact
2011-08-30