North Sea gas and oil boom threatens dolphins

Marine conservationists have called for permanent protection of one of the UK’s most important colonies of dolphins which is being threatened by a boom in North Sea oil and gas exploration.

Bottlenose dolphins have been living in and around the Moray Firth in the north-east of Scotland for a number of years. They have become a major tourist attraction, as the cold water is credited with the dolphins growing larger than other populations of bottlenose dolphins.
However, experts from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) fear that expansion of the off-shore drilling industry is threatening to drive the creatures away.

There are only around 130 left and a previous mathematical model, based mainly on data collected from the Firth, predicted an annual decline of almost 6 per cent in the dolphin population – which could mean extinction in a little less than 50 years.

Recently Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, issued a temporary reprieve for the dolphins when he excluded the section of sea bed within the Inner Moray Firth and Cardigan Bay in Wales from those areas on offer to oil firms for drilling in the 24th offshore oil and gas licensing round.

Both areas are considered extremely important for marine life in general and for cetaceans in particular. It is feared that any major disruption to the seas in these areas could have a noise impact over a wide sea area and drive the animals out of the adopted habitats.

The Independent