A Visit to the Cromarty Lighthouse Field Station in Scotland

What do the coasts of Eastern Scotland and Western Sweden have in common? Well, if you said beautiful scenery or rain, you wouldn’t be wrong, but they are also both home to populations of harbour seals! In November this year, I visited the Lighthouse Field Station in the small Scottish town of Cromarty to learn more about their seals, as well as to exchange survey methods and ideas. The Lighthouse is run by the Aberdeen School of Biological Sciences. Headed up by Professor Paul Thompson, the team there has been studying the population dynamics of Scottish marine mammals and seabirds since 1990. They are experts in harbour seal photo-ID and have been a big inspiration for Sälfie-ID and the work we at the University of Gothenburg are doing in Koster National Park.

Near Cromarty. This part of the Scottish coast is visited by a diverse range of marine mammals and seabirds.

Just a short drive north of Cromarty is Loch Fleet. This long, narrow inlet cuts deep into the Scottish coast, with its depth varying dramatically based on the lunar tide. Low tide exposes large sandbanks, which are a resting spot for both harbour (knubbsäl) and grey seals (gråsäl), as well as a diverse collection of coastal birds. The area is a perfect place to show off Scottish nature, and in the space of a few minutes we saw eider ducks (ejder), oystercatchers (strandskator), herring gulls (gråtrutar), black-backed gulls (havstrutar), curlews (storspovar), grey herons (gråhägrar), and (we think!) a peregrine falcon (pilgrimsfalk). As the tide rises, the banks disappear and the seals return to the water. Since tides can be predicted, researchers are able to time their visits to catch seals napping and collect photos, originally using a camera mounted on a spotting scope and more recently using drones. Since the researchers stand on the shore and keep the drone high enough to be ignored by the seals, they can do all this without disturbing the seals’ valuable rest.

The great advantage of sites like Loch Fleet is you can get close enough to watch seals through a scope without them knowing you’re there!

Over the week, I learned a lot about photo-ID and running long-term projects, which will be a real help to Sälfie-ID over the next years. We also talked about how we could use some of the drone-based methods to measure seal body condition that we have been developing in Sweden to track the health of the Loch Fleet seals. Most seal populations around Europe have been slowly recovering from historic overhunting over the past few decades. In recent years, the recovery has slowed or stopped for many harbour seal populations. For some, the populations have even started to decline, including in some areas of Scotland and the Kattegat–Skagerrak. By standardizing methods and collaborating between countries, we have the chance to explore how different pressures impact seal populations and better plan how to protect our oceans and our top predators.

I didn't pack my zoom lens - so this is the best photo I got!