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Review of the Potential of Seabird Colony Monitoring to Inform Monitoring Programmes for Consented Offshore Wind Farm Projects

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Review of the Potential of Seabird Colony Monitoring to Inform Monitoring Programmes for Consented Offshore Wind Farm Projects TITL BTO RESEARCH REPORT 712 Review of the potential of seabird colony monitoring to inform monitoring programmes for consented offshore wind farm projects. Cook, A.S.C.P., Humphreys, E.M., Robinson, R.A. & Burton, N.H.K. BTO Research Report No. 712 Review of the potential of seabird colony monitoring to inform monitoring programmes for consented offshore wind farm projects Authors Cook, A.S.C.P., Humphreys, E.M., Robinson, R.A. and Burton, N.H.K. Report of work carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy's offshore energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme April 2019 British Trust for Ornithology The British Trust for Ornithology, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2PU Registered Charity No. 216652 British Trust for Ornithology British Trust for Ornithology Review of the Potential of Seabird Colony Monitoring to Inform Monitoring Programmes for Consented Offshore Wind Farm Projects BTO Research Report No. 712 Cook, A.S.C.P., Humphreys, E.M., Robinson, R.A. and Burton, N.H.K. Published in April 2019 by the British Trust for Ornithology The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 2PU, UK Copyright British Trust for Ornithology 2019 ISBN 978-1-912642-07-6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers CONTENTS Page No. LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................... 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................... 5 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 9 1.1 Background ................................................................................................................................ 9 1.2 Aims ......................................................................................................................................... 10 2. METHODS ................................................................................................................................. 11 2.1 Identifying Relevant SPAs and Feature Species ..................................................................... 11 2.2 Summarising Existing Demographic Monitoring and the Availability of Data to inform Population Models .................................................................................................................. 12 2.2.1 Abundance .................................................................................................................. 12 2.2.2 Breeding success ......................................................................................................... 12 2.2.3 Adult survival .............................................................................................................. 12 2.3 Assessing the statistical power to detect changes in demographic parameters .................. 13 2.3.1 Abundance .................................................................................................................. 13 2.3.2 Breeding success ......................................................................................................... 15 2.3.3 Adult survival .............................................................................................................. 16 3. RESULTS ................................................................................................................................... 19 3.1 Identifying Relevant SPAs and Feature Species ..................................................................... 19 3.2 Summarising Existing Demographic Monitoring and the Availability of Data to inform Population Models .................................................................................................................. 20 3.3 Species Results ........................................................................................................................ 20 3.3.1 Northern Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis .......................................................................... 20 3.3.2 Manx Shearwater Puffinus puffinus .......................................................................... 30 3.3.3 Northern Gannet Morus bassanus ............................................................................. 36 3.3.4 European Shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis .................................................................. 44 3.3.5 Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla ..................................................................... 50 3.3.6 Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus ....................................................................... 58 3.3.7 Herring Gull Larus argentatus .................................................................................... 66 3.3.8 Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus ..................................................................... 74 3.3.9 Sandwich Tern Sterna sandvicensis ........................................................................... 80 3.3.10 Common Tern Sterna hirundo .................................................................................... 87 3.3.11 Arctic Tern Sterna paradisaea .................................................................................... 93 3.3.12 Arctic Skua Stercorarius parasiticus ......................................................................... 100 3.3.13 Great Skua Stercorarius skua ................................................................................... 105 3.3.14 Common Guillemot Uria aalge ................................................................................ 111 3.3.15 Razorbill Alca torda .................................................................................................. 119 3.3.16 Atlantic Puffin Fratercula arctica ............................................................................. 128 Research Report No: 712 April 2019 1 Page No. 4. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................................. 135 4.1 Discussion .............................................................................................................................. 135 4.2 Recommendations ................................................................................................................ 140 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................................... 144 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................ 145 APPENDIX 1......................................................................................................................................... 149 Research Report No: 712 April 2019 2 LIST OF TABLES Page No. Table 2.2.1 Demographic parameters of seabird species monitored by the Seabird Monitoring Programme and the extent to which they feed into national indicators ...................................................................................................... 13 Table 2.3.1 Scenarios considered for capture-mark-recapture studies at seabird breeding colonies that were used to generate estimates of adult survival .............................. 18 Table 4.1.1 Number of Special Protections Areas for each species at which LSEs associated with the impacts of offshore wind farms could not be ruled out by the HRA screening process and at which current monitoring programmes have sufficient power to detect at 25% or 50% decline in abundance and/or breeding success .... 137 Table A1 List of offshore wind farms considered in this report .............................................. 149 Table A2 Species features of Special Protection Areas for which a Likely Significant Effect (LSE) could not be ruled out by the Habitats Regulations Assessment or Appraisal (HRA) screening process for offshore wind farms considered in this report ................................................................................................................. 151 Table A3 Species features of Special Protection Areas for which a Likely Significant Effect (LSE) could not be ruled out by the Habitats Regulations Assessment or Appraisal (HRA) screening process for offshore wind farms considered in this report and the associated effects for which LSEs were predicted .................... 155 Table A4 Species features of Special Protection Areas for which a Likely Significant Effect (LSE) could not be ruled out by the Habitats Regulations Assessment or Appraisal (HRA) screening process for offshore wind farms considered in this report and the existing monitoring of abundance, breeding success and survival of these species’ populations .............................................................. 160 Research Report No: 712 April 2019 3 Research Report No: 712 April 2019 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. To inform the consenting process, the potential impacts on seabird populations of the key effects associated with renewable energy developments are assessed through an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). When preparing applications for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) in England or Wales, or for equivalent
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