UK Cetacean Conservation Strategy: technical report

Section 1 – Introduction to the Technical Report

1. The Technical Report describes the process undertaken to assess the vulnerability of the cetacean species covered in the UK Cetacean Conservation Strategy (herein referred to as the “Strategy”) to the key pressures acting on cetaceans in UK waters. The Technical Report provides the basis for the development of the Strategy which sets out our vision to ensure the conservation and protection of cetaceans in UK waters, contributing to the UK’s vision for clean, healthy, safe, productive, and biologically diverse oceans and seas.

2. To focus the high-level recommendations identified in the Strategy in relation to the key pressures and threats relevant to cetacean populations across the UK, the vulnerability of the nine original species of cetacean to anthropogenic activities was assessed by the Strategy Working Group. This was approached through assessing the vulnerability of each species to a range of pressures in the marine environment, each pressure arising from several activities. The assessments were carried out at a UK level, however in developing the Strategy and high-level recommendations, regional variations to the level of impact of a particular activity will form part of the work to implement the Strategy and undertake the high-level recommendations.

3. All species-pressure combinations with a high or medium vulnerability score (for any cetacean species), and with supporting evidence demonstrating impacts, were identified as the main pressures that should be considered when developing further recommendations for action.

4. With the addition of five new species and a species group (Table 1) following the public consultation, a qualitative summary of the main pressures and threats acting on all the species in the Strategy was undertaken in place of re-running the vulnerability assessment. Section 2 of the Technical Report therefore provides additional evidence on the five newly added species and species group, as well as any new evidence on the original nine species that was not available at the time of the original vulnerability assessment.

5. To gauge the extent to which the identified pressures are already being addressed, a review of current measures was conducted by the Strategy Working Group, with expert judgment used to highlight where progress was underway to deliver action that would be beneficial, and where more could be done through focused action. This forms the basis of the six high-level recommendations set out in the Strategy.

Table 1: Named species and species group included within the Strategy, common and scientific names.

Species (common name)

Harbour porpoise

Scientific name

Phocoena phocoena

Species (common name)

Common dolphin

Scientific name

Delphinus delphis

Species (common name)

Atlantic white-sided dolphin

Scientific name

Lagenorhynchus acutus

Species (common name)

Bottlenose dolphin

Scientific name

Tursiops truncatus

Species (common name)

White-beaked dolphin

Scientific name

Lagenorhynchus albirostris

Species (common name)

Risso’s dolphin

Scientific name

Grampus griseus

Species (common name)

Striped dolphin

Scientific name

Stenella coeruleoalba

Species (common name)

Killer whale

Scientific name

Orcinus orca

Species (common name)

Long-finned pilot whale

Scientific name

Globicephala melas

Species (common name)

Minke whale

Scientific name

Balaenoptera acutorostrata

Species (common name)

Humpback whale

Scientific name

Megaptera novaeangliae

Species (common name)

Sperm whale

Scientific name

Physeter macrocephalus

Species (common name)

Fin whale

Scientific name

Balaenoptera physalus

Species (common name)

• Beaked whales (species group):
• Northern Bottlenose Whale
• Cuvier’s Beaked Whale
• Sowerby’s Beaked Whale
• Gervais’ Beaked Whale
• Blainville’s Beaked Whale

Scientific name

• Hyperoodon ampullatus
• Ziphius cavirostris
• Mesoplodon bidens
• Mesoplodon europaeus
• Mesoplodon densirostris

6. Section 3 of the Technical Report is as consulted on in 2021, with some minor amendments to text and the orientation of tables for the purposes of publication. It consists of a quantitative analysis to assess the vulnerability of the populations of the nine species of cetaceans originally included in the Strategy to current pressures in UK waters, and the extent to which these pressures are already being managed through existing actions. The vulnerability assessments were then qualified by the scientific information available to inform the assessment. In some cases, published information was available that supported the assessments, resulting in a high level of confidence in the outcome. In other cases, the information was sparse, or the information tended not to support the vulnerability assessments. In both these cases, this resulted in reduced levels of confidence in the outcome.

7. The outcomes of both the qualitative and quantitative vulnerability assessments subsequently informed the identification of the six high-level recommendations set out in the Strategy.