UK dolphin and porpoise conservation strategy: technical report

Section 1 – Introduction to the Technical Report

1. This is the Technical Report to the UK Dolphin and Porpoise Conservation Strategy.

2. This document describes the process used to assess the vulnerability of the populations of the nine named species of cetaceans (Table 1, High Level Strategy) to current pressures in UK waters and the extent to which these pressures are already being managed.

3. A key objective of this strategy is:

• To identify the pressures that pose the greatest risk to the species covered by the strategy and to present proposals for new actions where necessary to maintain or improve their conservations status.

4. This has been approached through assessing the vulnerability of each species to a range of pressures in the marine environment, each pressure arising from several activities. The vulnerability assessments were then qualified by the scientific information available to inform the assessment (Annex 1). 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.

5. Species/pressure combinations with high or medium vulnerability scores, and supporting evidence demonstrating impacts, were taken forward for additional new/wider measures to be considered.