Background
Top predators are key indicators of marine ecosystem health, and monitoring their populations is vital to understanding broader ecosystem impacts of human activities such as coastal and offshore developments, and the environmental gains associated with marine enhancement and restoration strategies. Seals are unusual among marine predators in that they are dependent on both marine and terrestrial habitats for critical life history functions. Scotland is home to the grey seal (Halichoerus gryphus) and the harbour or common seal (Phoca vitulina). This project is focused on grey seals on the east coast of Scotland.
This low-cost, low-impact system would enable managers to make rapid, informed management decisions, making it particularly valuable for species facing challenging management issues.
Where and Why?
The Ythan Estuary in Aberdeenshire forms part of Forvie National Nature Reserve, which is owned and managed by NatureScot. Believed to be the fastest-growing seal haul-out in mainland Scotland, over 5,000 animals have been counted at this site, representing ~26% of grey seals in the East Coast of Scotland Seal Management Area. This location is also growing in popularity with tourists and, since the appearance of a seal-watching point in 2008, has become a hotspot for nature-based recreational activities. The site received 63,000+ visitors in 2020, of which ~85% were primarily there to view seals.
The goal of this project is to develop and pilot an autonomous camera monitoring (ACM) system for near-real time seal haul-out monitoring in Scotland. The system will be designed such that it could be installed in a wide range of coastal locations, including remote or difficult to access areas. It has the potential to be a key tool for a wide range of monitoring and management applications, including long-term tracking of population status and trends, identifying and mitigating disturbance events, pup monitoring, disease outbreak surveillance and control, and public education.
Grey Seals in Scotland
Globally there are three centres of grey seal abundance: one in eastern Canada and the north-east USA; a second around the coast of the UK, especially in Scottish coastal waters; and a third, smaller group in the Baltic Sea. Approximately 35% of the world’s grey seals breed in the UK and 80% of them breed at colonies in Scotland, with the main concentrations in the Outer Hebrides and in Orkney.
Grey seals are the larger of the two resident UK seal species. Adult males can weigh over 300kg while the females weigh around 150-200kg. Grey seals are long-lived animals, with males living for 20+ years and females for 30+ years.
They are generalist feeders, foraging mainly on the seabed at depths of up to 100m, although they are capable of feeding at all the depths found across the UK continental shelf. Grey seals forage in the open sea and return regularly to haul out on land where they rest, moult and breed. They may range widely to forage and frequently travel over 100km between haulout sites.
Meet Our Team
The project team is comprised of researchers and technical staff from the University of St Andrews and Scotland’s Rural College Aberdeen Campus.
Angela Amlin
PhD Student, Project Lead
University of St Andrews
Dr. Sarah Marley
Senior Lecturer in Ecology
Scotland’s Rural College
Dr. Gordon Hastie
Principal Research Fellow
University of St Andrews
Dr. Luke Rendell
MASTS Reader in Biology
University of St Andrews