Professor Ben Wilson, professor of energy, University of the Highlands and Islands
Tuesday 10 February 2015, Inverness College UHI
Inaugural Professorial Lecture: “Dolphins and steel: marine mammal ecology in industrialised seas”
Our coastal seas host an impressive diversity and abundance of marine mammals. Many of these species have been known about for hundreds of years but only in recent decades have we developed the tools to really understand their daily lives and the threats that they face. Concurrent has been an increasing use of the seas and oceans for industrial activities from food and energy provision to transport and war.
In this talk, Ben Wilson outlines his own studies of Scottish porpoises, Pacific sea lions and bottlenose dolphin populations from the Moray Firth to Florida and Croatia. All of these populations have been impacted by human activities to greater, lesser or unknown extents. His current work focusses on how technologies to extract renewable energy from the seas (wind, waves and tides) will interact with indigenous wildlife. These studies have posed many questions about how and why marine mammals and fish use energetic ocean habitats and in particular how they will respond to the diversity of the novel marine machines being proposed. Of specific conservation concern is whether or not marine mammals will collide with the blades of tidal turbines. Scotland is currently the world hub for marine energy extraction and so many of these fascinating interactions will take place off our own shores. Accordingly, Ben and the wider University of the Highlands and Islands marine energy research team has a ring-side seat on these issues and is playing a leading role in developing industry relevant solutions.
