Developments in understanding of red-throated diver responses to offshore wind farms in marine Special Protection Areas

Allen, Sophy; Banks, Alex N.; Caldow, R. W. G.; Frayling, Tim; Kershaw, Mel; Rowell, Helen

doi:10.1016/b978-0-08-102698-4.00029-0

Cited by 1 publication

(4 citation statements)

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“…Seabird species vary strongly in their sensitivity to OWFs (Furness et al, 2013). For divers, strong avoidance behavior to OWFs has been found in all recent studies (Mendel et al, 2019;Allen et al, 2020;Heinänen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Effect Of Wind Farms On the Spatial Distributionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…Since the number of divers has not decreased but is distributed over a smaller area, as they avoid the wind farms and their immediate surroundings, the density within the unaffected areas has increased accordingly. It might be argued that a carrying capacity limit could be reached in future (Goss-Custard et al, 2002;Allen et al, 2020), above which increased competition for food might force divers to shift to other stopover areas (see e.g., Oudman et al, 2020). Thus, declining spring numbers in the German Bight could be one of the likely consequences when the carrying capacity is reached.…”

Section: Long-term Effect Of Wind Farms On the Diver Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Divers show avoidance behavior toward vessels at distances of more than one kilometer (Bellebaum et al, 2006;Fliessbach et al, 2019) and show reduced densities in areas of high ship traffic (Schwemmer et al, 2011;Burger et al, 2019). Many studies have been conducted into reactions of divers to offshore wind farms, consistently reporting avoidance behavior toward the wind farm itself and lower sighting rates within a certain buffer zone around the wind farm (Dierschke et al, 2016;Mendel et al, 2019;Allen et al, 2020;Heinänen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike other fishfeeding seabirds, they mainly occur in relatively shallow (<40 m) coastal waters and their natural habitats thus overlap with areas suitable for offshore wind farming. Therefore, it is a concern that the expansion of wind farms will affect population numbers through habitat loss or displacement into suboptimal habitats or knock-on effects on breeding success (Allen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Use of an INLA Latent Gaussian Modeling Approach to Assess Bird Population Changes Due to the Development of Offshore Wind Farms

et al. 2021

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The utilization of marine renewable energies such as offshore wind farming leads to globally expanding human activities in marine habitats. While knowledge on the responses to offshore wind farms and associated shipping traffic is accumulating now at a fast pace, it becomes important to assess the population impacts on species affected by those activities. In the North Sea, the protected diver species Red-throated Diver (Gavia stellata) and Black-throated Diver (Gavia arctica) widely avoid offshore wind farms. We used an explicit spatio-temporal Bayesian model to get a robust estimate of the diver population during the spring season between 2001 and 2018, based on a set of aerial surveys from long-term monitoring programs within the German North Sea. Despite the erection of 20 offshore wind farms in the study area and marked responses of divers to wind farms, model results indicated that there was no population decline, and overall numbers fluctuated around 16,600 individuals, with average annual 95% CI ranging between 13,400 and 21,360 individuals. Although, avoidance behavior due to wind farm development led to a more narrowly focused spatial distribution of the birds centered in the persistent high concentration zone in the Eastern German Bight Special Protection Area, the results provide no indication of negative fitness consequences on these long-lived species. However, more research is needed on habitat use and food availability in this regard.

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