IMIS

European law entitles all cetacean to strict protection and provides a legal framework for management and conservation of the species and their habitat. Conserving highly mobile species, which distribution range overlap with multiple jurisdictions and varies across many spatial and temporal scales, is challenging. Understanding of cetaceans spatio-temporal distribution and site-usage (behaviour) is crucial to coordinate trans-national cooperation and conservation effort to adopt appropriate management plans. Many predators are known to favour area of predictable prey aggregations, often associated with topographic elements or dynamic oceanographic features. The Islay front, located off Malin Head and Islay, could constitute one of such foraging habitats. Little data is available on cetacean distribution above the Malin shelf specifically, a few surveys have directly targeted cetaceans in this area at the intersection of Irish and UK EEZ. However, both western Ireland to its south and western Scotland to its north are known to be important habitats for a range of cetacean species. The exit to the North channel also constitutes an interface between the Irish Sea and the Sea of the Hebrides, two areas of important density for cetaceans. While seasonal movements of many species are not fully understood, this might potentially represent an important corridor. The cetacean work under SeaMonitor project aims at describing and modelling patterns of occurrence and habitat-use of cetaceans near the Islay front. This will be achieved using acoustic data recorded year-long by static monitoring devices (SoundTrap and C-PODs) - deployed as part of a larger array of acoustic receivers targeting fish tags - and during glider missions. Detailed temporal data (from static devices) and larger spatial data (from gliders) will provide data on cetacean occurrence and seasonality, and other temporal trends (day night activity, tidal and lunar influences). Emphasis will be put on the elusive harbour porpoise, and these datasets will prove invaluable when helping and advising with the management plans for the north channel MPA. Acoustic data collected from the static deployments and gliders will also contribute towards spatially explicit predictive models which will be developed to support specific Management Plans for the MPAs. Because equipment has been selected to enable monitoring over a wide frequency range, any other species of cetacean vocalizing in the area should theoretically be detected (notably bottlenose, common, Risso's dolphins, minke whale and potentially white-beaked dolphin, killer whales and humpback whales). In addition to cetaceans monitoring, SeaMonitor acoustic stations will record broadband ambient noise. This will be useful to report on noise levels under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, for the assessment for Good Environmental Status. Characterization of soundscapes in the area will also allow identification of potential threats to marine mammals. Anthropogenic activity is a pervasive source of noise in the ocean and acoustic pollution is widely recognized as a major source of disturbance to marine mammals, which cumulated impacts on individuals most certainly have consequences at populations level.