News releases

NGOs across the UK (and EU) support the UK and Scottish governments’ decision to close sandeel fishing in all Scottish waters and the English North Sea in an urgent move to build resilience for globally important seabird populations and wider marine biodiversity.

Leading conservation charities are calling on Scottish Ministers to reject a renewables development that could wreak unacceptable levels of ecological damage – including to vulnerable seabird populations – off Scotland’s East Coast. The National Trust for Scotland, RSPB Scotland, Scottish Seabird Centre and the Scottish Wildlife Trust have set out their concerns about the siting of the proposed new Berwick Bank Offshore Wind Farm in a letter to Energy, Just Transition and Fair Work Minister, Gillian Martin MSP, as Scottish Ministers prepare to make a final decision on SSE-Renewables’ application for Berwick Bank. Ministers will have the final say on whether the application is approved once they have received the Scottish Government Marine Directorate’s recommendation on the proposal, expected shortly.

The Scottish Seabird Centre teamed up with Caledonian Horticulture's the Scottish Coastal Cleanup and Clean Coast Outer Hebrides on Saturday 2 March for a group beach clean in North Berwick. The aim of the event was to tackle the large amount of litter that’s been deposited on North Berwick’s beaches in the winter storms.

Researchers have found that the Bass Rock gannet colony, the largest Northern gannet colony on the Earth, has reduced by 25-30% since the last major count in 2014. The latest findings were a result of a partnership between the Scottish Seabird Centre, The University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences, and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. The group collected imagery from a state-of-the-art drone, implemented automated counts and combined this data with traditional seabird counting methods to help them understand the impact Avian Flu had on the island’s gannet population.