I will start. I can certainly talk about the marine mammals. We have two species of seal in the UK—the harbour seal and the grey seal. At the beginning of the 20th century, grey seals were almost extinct in the UK. It was estimated that there were less than 500 animals left, largely due to targeted hunting and fisheries control. We now have about 40 per cent of the world’s population of grey seals—about 120,000 animals—in Scottish waters. The number of grey seals has increased dramatically as a result of legislation to control the hunting of seals—initially the Conservation of Seals Act 1970 and latterly the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, which provided even greater protection measures.
The other reason why grey seals, in particular, have increased in numbers so much is the depopulation of many of the islands of Scotland where lighthouses became automated. It only took one or two people on an island to dissuade the seals from going there to breed. Now that we have so many islands with nobody living on them, the seals are very grateful and have returned. The Monach Isles on the west coast is a prime example; it is the largest grey seal breeding colony in the eastern Atlantic—that happened since the lighthouse was automated. Grey seals are doing well; some might say that they are doing too well.
Scotland was the stronghold in Europe for harbour seals, the smaller of the two seal species. We have about 40,000 harbour seals in Scotland. That is a minimum estimate, because they are very difficult to count. However, we are seeing a very strange phenomenon with harbour seals, in that on the east coast of Scotland and in the Northern Isles, the numbers are declining dramatically. In the past 12 years, Orkney, which was the stronghold for harbour seals, has seen a 90 per cent decline in the number of those seals, and the Firth of Tay has seen a 95 per cent decline.
Further south, in the Wash, which is another important area for harbour seals, the seals are doing very well. It seems that the numbers are suffering and declining in the north-eastern part of Scotland. The west coast population is increasing, but we know that the seals from the east coast have not gone to the west coast, because we can tag them. Genetics work has also shown that there is very little exchange between the two coasts. We know that something is happening to the harbour seals in the east and north-east of Scotland. A huge amount of Scottish Government-funded research is being carried out by the sea mammal research unit at the University of St Andrews to understand what is going on and to see if anything can be done about it. At the moment, we do not have any concrete answers on the cause of that decline.
However, we now know what is not causing the decline—if you see what I mean. For instance, we know that killer whale predation is not significant, so that is not an issue. We know that disease is not an issue; no phocine distemper outbreaks have caused it. We have started to tick off what is not causing the decline, but we do not yet know what is causing it. There is on-going work on that.
One species of seal is doing very well; the other is doing well in some places but very badly in others.
Historical data are relatively limited, but, as far as we know, our cetacean populations are doing quite well. I guess that the best example is that of the bottlenose dolphin population on the east coast. When we were designating special areas of conservation, the focus was on the Moray Firth, which is a special area of conservation for bottlenose dolphins. That is where we thought the population was. We now know that more than 120 bottlenose dolphins regularly use the Firth of Tay as a habitat, and that there is some interchange with the Moray Firth, although not a huge amount. Over the past two or three years, we have had increased reports of sightings—almost on a daily basis—of bottlenose dolphins in the Firth of Forth, too. Their range is expanding, and it would also appear that their numbers are increasing. We are not seeing a decline in numbers in the Moray Firth; we are seeing more dolphins in more places. The bottlenose dolphin is a good-news story.
Those are the main points on cetaceans and marine mammals.