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Metadata: 2015-2016, SMRU Consulting, Dudgeon, Report on the distribution and abundance of harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) during the 2015 and 2016 breeding seasons in The Wash
Abstract:
This report presents the results of a series of aerial surveys of the harbour seal population along the English east coast between Donna Nook in Lincolnshire and Scroby Sands off the Suffolk coast during the breeding seasons from 16th June to 17th July 2015 and 19th June to 16th July 2016. - Five surveys were completed on the 16th, 21st and 27th June and 3rd and 17th July 2015. - Five surveys were completed on the 19th, 24th June and 2nd, 8th and 16th July 2016. - As usual, flights were restricted to weekends because of RAF range activity. Poor weather conditions on the weekend of 10th July 2015 prevented flying and delayed the final flight to the 17th July 2015. This had no negative effects on the results. - The highest count obtained in 2015 was 1351 on 27th June and in 2016 the highest count was 1580 on 2nd July. Examination of the series of counts suggests that this is close to the actual maximum number of pups for the season. Examination of the five survey counts in each year suggests that these are close to the actual maximum number of pups in each year. - The 2015 count was substantially lower (22%) than the 2014 equivalent count, but the 2016 peak count was 17% higher than in 2015. These wide fluctuations are not unusual in the long term time series. - Despite the apparently wide inter-annual variation, the pup production has increased at around 7.4% p.a. since surveys began in 2001. - The distribution of pup counts within The Wash has changed with more pups in the sheltered South East corner, and more along the banks of the main river channels. These changes appear to have happened between 2001 and 2010. - Pup productivity has apparently increased relative to the independent estimates of the total population size
Data holder:
The Crown Estate
| Other details | ||
| Internal code | Internally assigned metadata identifier | 19455 |
| Title | The title is used to provide a brief and precise description of the dataset such as 'Date', 'Originating organisation/programme', 'Location' and 'Type of survey'. All acronyms and abbreviations should be reproduced in full. | 2015-2016, SMRU Consulting, Dudgeon, Report on the distribution and abundance of harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) during the 2015 and 2016 breeding seasons in The Wash |
| Alternative title | The purpose of alternative title is to record any additional names by which the dataset may be known. | Report on the distribution and abundance of harbour seals |
| File Identifier | The File Identifier is a code, preferably a GUID, that is globally unique and remains with the same metadata record even if the record is edited or transferred between portals or tools. | e99c36c8-330a-4e9a-9342-1aa5c01d867f |
| Resource Identifier | This is the code assigned by the data owner. | TCE-3520 |
| Resource type | The resource type will likely be a dataset but could also be a series (collection of datasets with a common specification) or a service. | series |
| Start date | This describes the date the resource starts. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 2015-06-16 |
| End date | This describes the date the resource ends. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 2016-07-16 |
| Frequency of updates | This describes the frequency with which the resource is modified or updated i.e. a monitoring programme that samples once per year has a frequency that is described as 'annually'. | notPlanned |
| Abstract | The abstract provides a clear and brief statement of the content of the resource. | This report presents the results of a series of aerial surveys of the harbour seal population along the English east coast between Donna Nook in Lincolnshire and Scroby Sands off the Suffolk coast during the breeding seasons from 16th June to 17th July 2015 and 19th June to 16th July 2016. - Five surveys were completed on the 16th, 21st and 27th June and 3rd and 17th July 2015. - Five surveys were completed on the 19th, 24th June and 2nd, 8th and 16th July 2016. - As usual, flights were restricted to weekends because of RAF range activity. Poor weather conditions on the weekend of 10th July 2015 prevented flying and delayed the final flight to the 17th July 2015. This had no negative effects on the results. - The highest count obtained in 2015 was 1351 on 27th June and in 2016 the highest count was 1580 on 2nd July. Examination of the series of counts suggests that this is close to the actual maximum number of pups for the season. Examination of the five survey counts in each year suggests that these are close to the actual maximum number of pups in each year. - The 2015 count was substantially lower (22%) than the 2014 equivalent count, but the 2016 peak count was 17% higher than in 2015. These wide fluctuations are not unusual in the long term time series. - Despite the apparently wide inter-annual variation, the pup production has increased at around 7.4% p.a. since surveys began in 2001. - The distribution of pup counts within The Wash has changed with more pups in the sheltered South East corner, and more along the banks of the main river channels. These changes appear to have happened between 2001 and 2010. - Pup productivity has apparently increased relative to the independent estimates of the total population size |
| Lineage | Lineage includes the background information, history of the sources of data, data quality statements and methods. | Essentially the survey method is a continuous visual inspection of all potential haulout sites around the coast on off-shore tidal banks. When groups of more than two or thee seals are spotted they are photographed. High resolution, large images are required because of the difficulty in differentiating harbour seal pups from similar sized juveniles and differentiating juvenile grey seals from adult harbour seals. As a consequence large numbers of photographs are required to cover large groups. All photography was conducted obliquely using a CANON EOS SLR camera with 18 to 270mm zoom lens. All surveys followed standard SMRU survey methods and routes and were flown in a twin engine Piper PA-23, 'Aztec' based in Kent. The entire coast is searched from a variable height of 180 to 400m. When groups of seals are sighted the aircraft either flies parallel with the shore for groups of seals spread along open stretches of beach, or performs one or more tight turns to circle smaller or more evenly dispersed groups. Groups hauled out along creeks or dispersed in the salt marsh areas were first identified during intensive visual searches by the 3 man crew and then photographed. This method produces extremely convoluted survey tracks making it difficult to keep track of which groups and sites have been covered. To avoid missing or over-counting groups we maintain three separate records of the survey track. GPS tracks were recorded from the aircraft's on-board GPS logger sampling at 5 second intervals and a GARMIN FORETREX 401 GPS logger sampling at 3 second intervals. The timestamp of the loggers were synched with the time on the camera. Discrete haul-outs can therefore be associated with precise locations and temporal and spatial haul-out patterns can be analysed. Both the cameraman and the observer/tracker recorded the locations and frame numbers directly onto maps and maintained a separate written log of the flight. The number of discrete groups of harbour seals ranged from 44-60 and few were observed at sites other than those previously recorded in the survey area, during the pupping surveys (Figure 6). Additional, solitary animals were counted but not photographed. Example photographs of a range of group sizes are presented in Figure 7 and Figure 8. |
| Related keywords | ||
| Keyword | General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Seal abundance |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Seal reproduction | |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Post-Construction monitoring | |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Renewable Energy Lease area | |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Species distribution | |
| Geographical coverage | ||
| North | The northern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 53.1623 |
| East | The eastern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 0.5912 |
| South | The southern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 52.7909 |
| West | The western-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | -0.0816 |
| Responsible organisations | ||
| Role | The point of contact is person or organisation with responsibility for the creation and maintenance of the metadata for the resource. | pointOfContact |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| Individual name | John Mitchell | |
| Phone | +44 020 7851 5000 | |
| enquiries@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Role | The custodian is the person or organisation that accepts responsibility for the resource and ensures appropriate care and maintenance. If a dataset has been lodged with a Data Archive Centre for maintenance then this organisation is be entered here. | custodian |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| Phone | +44 020 7851 5000 | |
| enquiries@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Role | The originator is the person or organisation who created, collected or produced the resource. | originator |
| Organisation name | Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) | |
| Phone | +44 (0)1334 462630 | |
| smru@st-andrews.ac.uk | ||
| Role | The distributor is the person or organisation that distributes the resource. | distributor |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| Phone | +44 020 7851 5000 | |
| enquiries@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Role | The owner is the person or organisation that owns the resource. | owner |
| Organisation name | Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) | |
| smru@st-andrews.ac.uk | ||
| Resource locators | ||
| Locator URL | Web address (URL) that links to the resource | https://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk/details/TCE-3520/summary |
| Web address (URL) that links to the resource | https://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk | |
| Dataset constraints | ||
| 20.1 Limitations on Public Access - Access constraints | This states `otherRestrictions` from ISO vocabulary RestrictionCode and is an INSPIRE/GEMINI requirement. | otherRestrictions |
| 20.2 Limitations on Public Access - Other constraints | There will be no limitations when published on the Marine Data Exchange | |
| 21.1 Conditions for Access and Use - Use constraints | This states `otherRestrictions` from ISO vocabulary RestrictionCode and is an INSPIRE/GEMINI requirement. | otherRestrictions |
| 21.2 Conditions for Access and Use - Other constraints | This states any constraints on use of the data. Multiple conditions can be recorded for different parts of the data resource. If no conditions apply, then `No condtions apply` is recorded. This uses free text. | Data Must be used in accordance to the Marine Data Exchange's Terms of Use: https://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk/content/info/terms-of-use |
| Version info | ||
| Date of publication | The publication date of the resource or if previously unpublished the date that the resource was made publicly available via the MEDIN network. | 2024-09-02 |
| Harvest date | The date which this record has been (re)harvested from the provider. | 2026-04-19 |
| Metadata date | The date when the content of this metadata record was last updated. | 2026-03-17 |
| Metadata standard name | The name of the metadata standard used to create this metadata | MEDIN |
| Metadata standard version | The version of the MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard used to create the metadata record | 3.1.2 |