Marine survey and monitoring in Scottish MPAs

Seabed habitats

• April: Edrachillis Bay. This will be our annual dive skills refresher and an opportunity to survey the extent of the maerl beds in the proposed PMF area.
• May:  Firth of Lorn Special Area of Conservation and proposed PMF management areas in the region in collaboration with Marine Directorate on board Alba na Mara. The survey is investigating changes in the condition of reefs using drop down video.
• June: Scalpay and the Crowlins in collaboration with RSSLA to survey proposed PMF management areas in the Inner Sound using drop-down video
• June: North west Skye. A small-boat diving and drop-down-video survey in proposed PMF management areas off the west coast of Skye, including working with local community groups.
• August: Dornoch Firth and Morrich More Special Area of Conservation. Acoustic and drop-down-video survey targeting subtidal blue and horse mussel beds.
• August: Sound of Barra Special Area of Conservation. The survey aims to complement work carried out off Alba na Mara in 2023, to assess changes in the condition of seagrass beds and shallower maerl, and how that's changed since 2015 within the SAC .
• September: Sound of Arisaig Special Area of Conservation and adjacent proposed PMF management areas. The target here is to assess the condition of maerl beds and seagrass beds within the SAC, and revalidate and gap-fill between records in the proposed PMF management areas.

Marine mammals and elasmobranchs

• May to September: 20 boat-based photo-identification surveys with passive acoustic monitoring planned in the Moray Firth SAC and in the Firth of Tay waters. Part funded by NatureScot and led by the Universities of Aberdeen and St Andrew's, to update our knowledge of the east coast bottlenose dolphin population abundance, site usage, and distribution.
• April/May: Deployment of six broadband passive acoustic monitoring moorings for a minimum of six months within the North-east Lewis MPA. Part of a pilot study to collect data on Risso's dolphin occurrence and distribution patterns. This builds on year-round continued data collection from dedicated and opportunistic photo identification encounters, and WDC Shorewatch land-based sightings data from within the MPA.
• August: Harbour seal aerial counts in Orkney and Shetland to complete the 2021-2025 monitoring cycle around the Scottish coastline. Part funded by NatureScot and led by the Sea Mammal Research Unit. This will provide robust estimates of abundance and distribution.
• Sightings and towed acoustic data collection in the Hebrides by the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust. A NatureScot funding collaboration providing us with annual baseline data on the distribution and relative abundance of cetaceans and basking sharks, covering designated features within the Sea of the Hebrides MPA, North-east Lewis MPA, and Inner Hebrides and the Minches SAC.
• Flapper skate acoustic tagging and photogrammetry survey planned for the Red Rocks and Longay MPA, with continued photo identification and PIT-tag recapture by anglers in the Loch Sunart to Sound of Jura MPA. 

Marine birds

• NatureScot is assisting with wintering gull surveys in January 2025. This is a BTO-led nationwide survey.
• Full census colony counts and productivity monitoring at protected areas  across Scotland through the Marine Bird Monitoring Project. Funded by the Offshore Wind Directorate of Scottish Government, this will provide up-to-date count data on Scottish breeding seabird colonies. The data will help inform decisions on offshore-wind applications and increase our understanding of the impacts of threats such as HPAI.
• Site Condition Monitoring: routine seabird surveys on coastal National Nature Reserves (Isle of May, Noss, Hermaness, Rum, Forvie, Loch Leven).
• HPAI work - Gull serology work in January 2025, Great Skua serology work in June 2025 (Fair Isle and Hermaness (w/ Uni of Edinburgh).
• Routine biosecurity surveillance on NatureScot managed islands, Noss and Isle of May.
• Monitoring of wintering features (seabirds and waterfowl) within the Outer Firth of Forth and St Andrews Bay Complex SPA, using digital aerial survey and vantage point survey techniques. The population and distribution data generated will help to inform numbers and usage of the area in winter, to help inform assessments in light of the increased number of developments proposed in the Firth of Forth and the impact of HPAI on the site's features.

• 22 March to 2 April – A research cruise with Marine Directorate (MD) on board Alba na Mara to survey the Southern Trench MPA and Orkney proposed management areas prior to proposed amendments to fisheries management and various proposed PMF management areas in the Northern Isles.  This widened our knowledge of PMF condition and distribution in these areas.
• 16 to 18 April – Visit to Loch Hourn. This was our annual training dive survey and survey of the proposed PMF area in the loch.
• July – Visiting Loch Fyne. A dive survey to monitor the condition of the flame shells feature of the Upper Loch Fyne and Loch Goil MPA (NC). Infauna samples and imagery data have been contracted out for analysis. Citizen Science divers from Seasearch later went to confirm flame shells in a further area where we suspected they were present based on drop-down-video tows. See our blog post.
• August – Revisited Arran to support our partners at the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST) in monitoring scallops, following a 2023 illegal fishing incident. See our blog post.
• September – Visited Skye to support flapper skate work in the Red Rocks and Longay MPA in the Inner Sound of Skye.
• 23 September to 7 October – A research cruise with Marine Directorate (MD) on board Alba na Mara targeting the Southern Trench MPA, Shetland MPAs and proposed management areas, covering large areas of maerl and horse mussel beds. We used a combination of drop-down-video, sediment grabs and baited remote underwater video (BRUV) setups. 

• March – A survey of Didemnum vexillum in Loch Creran. Part of a multi-year partnership project with Herriot Watt University, revisiting sites which have been set up to monitor for the invasive colonial species also known as carpet sea squirt.
• April 16- May 14 – A cruise with Marine Scotland Science (MSS) to survey the Wester Ross MPA and Sound of Barra SAC. Drop-down video and grab sampling used for infaunal (creatures living in the sediment) analysis to build up a time series so we can monitor changes in PMFs with the removal of fishing pressure. We visited further sites along the west coast of Scotland and Hebrides to widen our knowledge of PMF condition and distribution.
• June – Visited sites in Wester Ross. A dive survey predominantly, diving to set up a long-term monitoring study to monitor changes in the habitat with the removal of fishing pressure.
• August – Visited South Arran MPA to carry out a repeat of the long-term monitoring survey of the MPA. Looking for changes in the seabed and PMFs with the protection of these sites, as well as further seagrass surveys to increase our knowledge of their condition and distribution.