TRACKING MARINE MAMMALS AROUND MARINE RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVICES USING ACTIVE SONAR GORDON HASTIE URN: 12D/328: 31 JULY 2013 This document was produced as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's offshore energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme © Crown Copyright, all rights reserved. 1 SMRU Limited New Technology Centre North Haugh ST ANDREWS Fife KY16 9SR www.smru.co.uk Switch: +44 (0)1334 479100 Fax: +44 (0)1334 477878 Lead Scientist: Gordon Hastie Scientific QA: Carol Sparling Date: Wednesday, 31 July 2013 Report code: SMRUL-DEC-2012-002.v2 This report is to be cited as: Hastie, G.D. (2012). Tracking marine mammals around marine renewable energy devices using active sonar. SMRU Ltd report URN:12D/328 to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. September 2012 (unpublished). Approved by: Jared Wilson Operations Manager1 1 Photo credit (front page): R Shucksmith (www.rshucksmith.co.uk) 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Table of Figures ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 1. Non technical summary --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 2. Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 Project Scope ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 3. Phase one: Sonar Identification ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 Biosonics DT-X ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 Hardware Details --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 Existing Marine Wildlife Tracking System -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 Tritech Gemini ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Hardware Details --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Existing Movement Detection System ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 20 CodaOctopus Echoscope 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 22 Hardware details --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 Existing software --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 4. Phase two: Marine mammal response tests ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 24 Introduction------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Methods and results -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Grey seals: Methods ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Grey seals: Results ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 27 Harbour porpoises: Methods ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 Harbour porpoises: Results -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 32 Sonar audibility on a tidal turbine --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 33 Discussion --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 36 5. Phase three: Sonar development and testing----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38 Development Aims ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38 Biosonics DT-X Development ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38 Tritech Gemini Development ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39 Marine Mammal data collection ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 40 Grey seals ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 40 Harbour seals ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 42 Harbour porpoises ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 43 Bottlenose dolphins ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 44 Marine Mammal Calibration Tests -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 45 Software development ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 48 Software Validation Tests ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 50 Manual Target Classification by Users ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 53 Discussion --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 55 6. Phase 4: Long term Tidal Turbine Deployment --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 56 Methods ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 58 Sonar hardware ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 58 Data collection and Analysis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 59 Results -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 60 Discussion --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 64 7. Practical Application of Sonar as a Behavioural Monitoring Tool ---------------------------------------------------------------- 68 Behavioural Research: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 68 Environmental Monitoring Programs (EMP): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 70 Real-time Mitigation: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 71 Conclusions and future work --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 71 8. Acknowledgements ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 73 9. References ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 74 10. Appendix 1: Sonar Manufacturers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 77 11. Appendix 2: Sonar Specifications -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 78 3 12. Appendix 3: Request for Proposals document ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 88 13. Appendix 4: Model outputs from behavioural response trials -------------------------------------------------------------------- 94 14. Appendix 5: Tritech Gemini specification sheet -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 96 15. Appendix 6: Biosonics DT-X specifications sheet ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 98 4 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1: Schematic showing the phases of the program and the key tests which determined whether to proceed to the next phase. .............................................................................................................................................................................