The Life History of Cetaceans in Montrose Bay

Angus, 19 September 2019

Claire Lacey, Marine and Coastal Special Interest Group Committee

The CIEEM Scottish Section and Marine and Coastal SIG were honoured to work with the Tayside Biodiversity Partnership’s Coastal & Marine Group organisers to provide this event as part of the wonderful 2019 Angus Coastal Festival. We were also very fortunate to be joined by Cllr Bill Duff – Angus Species Champion for the bottlenose dolphin.

We were beyond fortunate with the weather, and had a glorious walk around coastal paths of Ferryden, a good vantage point from which 3 species of cetacean can regularly be seen as well as being a good spot to watch seals coming in and out of their estuary haul-outs.

We weren’t lucky enough to get any cetaceans during our watches today, but nevertheless had a good time talking about the life history of these animals, and getting some good hot-off-the-press updates on the monitoring which has been carried out over the summer by researchers at the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU).