
Marine survey and monitoring in Scottish MPAs
Details of our marine survey and monitoring work
Marine and coastal landing page
Our marine survey and monitoring work helps inform the designation and management of marine protected areas, and inform the establishment of PMF management areas in Scottish territorial waters.
To see hundreds of downloadable photographs of marine life taken during our surveys visit our FlickR pages.
Marine survey plans for 2025
Seabed habitats
- April: Visiting 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: Visiting Fetlar to Haroldswick MPA. A small-boat diving and drop-down-video survey to complement work carried out off the boat Alba na Mara in 2024, targeting shallower areas of maerl beds, horse mussel beds and sublittoral sediment features.
- June: Visiting 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.
- July: Visiting the Isle of Mull & Iona. Acoustic and drop-down-video survey targeting seagrass beds, maerl beds and native oyster records within proposed PMF management areas, to establish baseline monitoring evidence.
- August: Visiting the 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: Visiting the 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.
- In addition to the above surveys, the monitoring team have bid for vessel time on Alba na Mara for 2025, and are waiting for this to be confirmed. We are also working internally to set out a programme for intertidal monitoring, and further discussion with contractors and community groups to complement our own monitoring work.
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.
Our 2024 surveys
- 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.
- 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.
A common lobster scuttles by in the Lamlash Bay No Take Zone within the South Arran Marine Protected Area.
Our 2023 surveys
- 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.

Our team covers three main areas:
1. Marine survey work includes:
- marine survey design and planning
- locating Priority Marine Features
- assessing condition of features
- exploring effectiveness of management
- investigating trends
2. Marine data
- mobilisation of data
- data archive
3. Marine research and collaboration
- working with experts from universities and institutions in the UK
- collaborating with local groups and communities