Page 148 - Alderney Regional Environmental Assessment of Renewable Energy: Environmental Report
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Alderney
Regional Environmental Assessment of Renewable Energy:
Environmental Report
5.5.1.2
Limitations and data gaps
A wide range of marine mammal monitoring and research programmes have been undertaken
in the Western Approaches to the English Channel and along the French coast which broadly
overlap with the Channel Islands, and have fed into the Sea Watch Foundation database.
There is also a pilot programme that is being led by the Agence des Aires Marines Protégées
and a number of scientific partners, called Programme d’acquisition de connaissances sur les
oiseaux et les mammifères marins en France métropolitaine (PACOMM
5
) which has involved
the collection of data on birds and marine mammals in French waters between 2010 and 2014.
This study which is anticipated to be published later in 2014 evaluates the distribution of
seabirds and marine mammals, as well as human activities, boats, waste and their spatial and
temporal variability. This will therefore complement the existing baseline characterisation of
marine mammals undertaken as part of this REA and should be considered by individual
developers at the project-level as necessary.
Although this is considered to be an adequate source of baseline information for the region, a
monitoring programme will need to be established at the EIA project-level to understand the
possible impacts particularly of tidal stream turbines. Examples of the specialist surveys which
may be required to support the EIA include:
Aerial surveys;
Land or boat based counts at haul-out sites;
Vantage point surveys;
Boat based surveys;
Photo ID;
Telemetry;
Stranding and carcass ID;
Towed Hydrophone array protocol; and
Autonomous Acoustic Monitoring (e.g. cetacean pods (C-PODs)).
5.5.1.3
Study area
The study area will need to encompass any pathways which connect the Draft Plan with
receptors. Marine mammals and turtles are highly mobile and can forage and move over long
distances. Evidence suggests that seals recorded around the Channel Islands are part of a
larger population with regular movement between haul-out sites in the Channel Islands, France
and England (Härkönen
et al
. 2007; Hassani
et al
, 2010; GECC, 2011). Harbour porpoise have
also been recorded undertaking large movements of up to 1000km (Teilmann
et al
. 2008).
Inshore bottlenose dolphin populations are generally more discrete with more localised
distributions although some connectivity with other populations has been recorded (Robinson
et al
. 2012). With the exception of the resident dolphin population found along the Cotentin
coast and Channel Islands other bottlenose dolphin populations are unlikely to be recorded in
this area.
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