Dynamic habitat corridors for marine mammals: intensive use of a coastal channel by harbour seals is modulated by tidal currents [abstract]

Dynamic habitat corridors for marine mammals: intensive use of a coastal channel by harbour seals is modulated by tidal currents [abstract

Harbour seals avoid tidal turbine noise: implications for collision risk

1. Tidal stream energy converters (turbines) are currently being installed in tidally energetic coastal sites. However, there is currently a high level of uncertainty surrounding the potential environmental impacts on marine mammals. This is a key consenting risk to commercial introduction of tidal energy technology. Concerns derive primarily from the potential for injury to marine mammals through collisions with moving components of turbines. To understand the nature of this risk, information on how animals respond to tidal turbines is urgently required. 2. We measured the behaviour of harbour seals in response to acoustic playbacks of simulated tidal turbine sound within a narrow coastal channel subject to strong, tidally induced currents. This was carried out using data from animal-borne GPS tags and shore-based observations, which were analysed to quantify behavioural responses to the turbine sound. 3. Results showed that the playback state (silent control or turbine signal) was not a significant predictor of the overall number of seals sighted within the channel. 4. However, there was a localised impact of the turbine signal; tagged harbour seals exhibited significant spatial avoidance of the sound which resulted in a reduction in the usage by seals of between 11 and 41% at the playback location. The significant decline in usage extended to 500 m from the playback location at which usage decreased by between 1 and 9% during playback. Synthesis and applications: This study provides important information for policy makers looking to assess the potential impacts of tidal turbines and advise on development of the tidal energy industry. Results showing that seals avoid tidal turbine sound suggest that a proportion of seals encountering tidal turbines will exhibit behavioural responses resulting in avoidance of physical injury; in practice, the empirical changes in usage can be used directly as avoidance rates when using collision risk models to predict the effects of tidal turbines on seals. There is now a clear need to measure how marine mammals behave in response to actual operating tidal turbines in the long term to learn whether marine mammals and tidal turbines can co-exist safely at the scales currently envisaged for the industry

Ready or not: employment, re-entry and the lasting effects of stigma after incarceration

In this thesis I explore the how former prisoners experience the transition from incarceration to employment. Employment has been identified by researchers as an essential element in exprisoners’ community re-entry process. However, the path to attaining employment after incarceration, particularly meaningful employment, remains complicated. Drawing on in-depth, semi-structured longitudinal interviews with 24 parolees occurring over a three-year period, I seek to better understand the experiences of ex-prisoners as they attempt to find work. I aim to understand whether individuals are prepared to pursue employment immediately upon release from prison and the factors that impact their readiness, or lack thereof. Upon recognizing that individuals in the study tended to identify themselves as not ready for employment, I sought to understand why they were still expected to begin working using Goffman’s (1963) theory of stigma. I suggest that in many cases, attempting to manage one’s stigmatized status slows individuals’ return to work. As well, I suggest that the stigma associated with time spent incarcerated undermines individual credibility, and for this reason, participants’ assertions that they do not feel ready to begin working are often not accepted

Researching reconstructing the SPRINT database

From the Tuesday lightning talk session at PASIG 2017 Oxford 12 September 2017

Habour seal pup tag durations.

<p>Pups were tagged on the west coast of Scotland at Lismore (red) in late June and in the Orkney Islands (blue) in early July. The date of last transmission from a live animal was determined by examining the pattern of movement from location data.</p

Phoca vitulina.

<p>Details of harbour seal pups tagged on the north (Orkney) and west (Lismore) coasts of Scotland.</p

Parameter estimates for the best model.

<p>The confidence intervals are generated from 500 bootstrap re-samples of the data.</p

Attributes noted in all sprial trauma cases necropsied 2009-2015(n = 48).

<p>Attributes noted in all sprial trauma cases necropsied 2009-2015(n = 48).</p

Corrected Akaike Information Criterion and weights for the candidate models.

a<p>the difference between AICc_i and AICc_min. See <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0080727#pone.0080727.e003" target="_blank">Eqn (3)</a> in text.</p>b<p>Akaike weights. See <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0080727#pone.0080727.e004" target="_blank">Eqn (4)</a> in text for calculation.</p>c<p>Single  =  single birth date parameter estimated for both populations; Separate  =  separate birth date parameter estimated for each population</p

Survival of harbour seal pups and tags.

<p>Open squares are the dates of last ‘live’ transmission from tags attached to harbour seal pups at Lismore and solid circles are those deployed at Orkney. Solid lines are the estimates of pup (blue; assumed to have been born on the 20^th June) and tag (green; assumed to have been attached on 23^rd June) survival from the best of the fitted models, which had a common gamma distribution for survival for both Orkney and Lismore and a common birth date. Shaded regions show 95% confidence limits generated from 500 bootstrap re-samples of the data.</p