Harbour porpoise trends and offshore wind farm effects in the German Bight North Sea

Rose, A.; Braasch, A.; Diederichs, A.; Freund, A.; Michalik, A.; Moick, M.; Schubert, A.; Schultz, M.; Vob, J.; Wahl, V. (2025). Harbour porpoise trends and offshore wind farm effects in the German Bight North Sea. Report by BioConsult SH.

@techreport{Rose-2025-,
author = {Rose, A and Braasch, A and Diederichs, A and Freund, A and Michalik, A and Moick, M and Schubert, A and Schultz, M and Vob, J and Wahl, V},
title = {Harbour porpoise trends and offshore wind farm effects in the German Bight North Sea},
institution = {BioConsult SH},
year = {2025},
month = {may},
url = {https://bwo-offshorewind.de/en/pressemitteilung-offshore-windparks-sind-rueckzugsraeume-fuer-schweinswale-in-der-deutschen-nordsee/},
keywords = {Wind Energy, Fixed Offshore Wind, Avoidance, Noise, Marine Mammals, Cetaceans},
}

Export Citation to BibTex

TY - RPRT
TI - Harbour porpoise trends and offshore wind farm effects in the German Bight North Sea
AU - Rose, A
AU - Braasch, A
AU - Diederichs, A
AU - Freund, A
AU - Michalik, A
AU - Moick, M
AU - Schubert, A
AU - Schultz, M
AU - Vob, J
AU - Wahl, V
AB - The rapidly growing number of offshore wind farms (OWFs) in the German Bight, North Sea, raised questions about long-term effects on the habitat use of the highly mobile harbour porpoise. Previous studies found seemingly contradicting trends for this species in that region. As a consequence, this project was designed to shed more light on the issue by investigating long-term passive-acoustic monitoring (PAM) data obtained by cetacean porpoise detectors (CPODs). This study is based on a 13-year PAM dataset derived from CPOD monitoring between the years of 2010 and 2023 with in total 69 different deployment positions throughout the German EEZ (German Bight, North Sea); with the exception of the northwestern and central part where no acoustic recording devices were deployed.
DA - 2025/05//
PY - 2025
SP - 98
PB - BioConsult SH
UR - https://bwo-offshorewind.de/en/pressemitteilung-offshore-windparks-sind-rueckzugsraeume-fuer-schweinswale-in-der-deutschen-nordsee/
LA - English
KW - Wind Energy
KW - Fixed Offshore Wind
KW - Avoidance
KW - Noise
KW - Marine Mammals
KW - Cetaceans
ER -

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Abstract

The rapidly growing number of offshore wind farms (OWFs) in the German Bight, North Sea, raised questions about long-term effects on the habitat use of the highly mobile harbour porpoise. Previous studies found seemingly contradicting trends for this species in that region. As a consequence, this project was designed to shed more light on the issue by investigating long-term passive-acoustic monitoring (PAM) data obtained by cetacean porpoise detectors (CPODs). This study is based on a 13-year PAM dataset derived from CPOD monitoring between the years of 2010 and 2023 with in total 69 different deployment positions throughout the German EEZ (German Bight, North Sea); with the exception of the northwestern and central part where no acoustic recording devices were deployed.