VULNERABILITY OF SCOTTISH SEABIRDS TO OFFSHORE WIND

2.1 Birds Directive status

Species listed Annex 1 of the Birds Directive were given a score of 5 while species qualifying as 'Migratory species' but not on Annex 1 were scored 3 and remaining species score 1 ( Table 3; scientific names of all species being considered are listed in Table 2). These scores reflect aspects of conservation importance, but are not optimal for guidance regarding consenting risk. Within this scoring factor we felt that it would be useful also to consider the proportion of the Scottish population of each species that is protected within the SPA network, a statistic of direct relevance to consenting risk. Unfortunately, such data are not readily available for Scotland. In the SPA review (Stroud et al. 2001) such a statistic is considered at a GB and biogeographic level, but those data are not calculated at a Scottish level, and are now also somewhat out of date. A useful improvement to this score may be possible if an up-to-date database of numbers of seabirds in SPAs in Scotland could be established, and kept up to date. That in itself will be a non-trivial task, but is the focus of work currently being carried out for Marine Scotland. We recommend that this factor should be replaced by the numbers in SPAs in Scotland when those data become available, in order to strengthen the relevance to consenting risk.