Minke whale monitoring begins in a Scotland offshore wind zone
Minke whale monitoring is now under way in a stretch of protected Scotland seabed that 3 offshore wind projects plan to route cables through. The Southern Trench, off the coast of Aberdeenshire, became a Marine Protected Area on 3 December 2020, one of 4 new sites named that day specifically to protect minke whales. The Scottish Association for Marine Science is now running a 2 year underwater listening study there, paid for by the wind farm developers whose cables would cross the same water. The 3 ScotWind projects funding it are named Broadshore, Caledonia and Muir Mhor, alongside 2 additional funders, Crown Estate Scotland and NatureScot.
The total of 5 is the sum of the 3 ScotWind wind farms and the 2 additional funders named in the trade press report, a calculation made for this chart, not a figure the source states as a single number itself.
Show the numbers
| ScotWind wind farms funding the study, Broadshore, Caledonia and Muir Mhor | 3 |
| Additional funders, Crown Estate Scotland and NatureScot | 2 |
| Total organizations funding the study | 5 |
Anja Wittich, project manager at SAMS Enterprise, says the team has already retrieved and redeployed all 3 acoustic recorders used in the study, covering the summer and autumn of 2025.
With the information we can provide the best insights possible into the minke whale movements and can then take the necessary steps to understand potential impacts.
Anja Wittich, project manager at SAMS Enterprise, quoted in source 1. Source 1.
Why the Southern Trench was protected in the first place
Mairi Gougeon, the Minister for the Natural Environment in Scotland at the time of the designation, said the government had a duty to act.
It is our duty to help protect and enhance our marine environment so that it remains a prized asset for future generations.
Mairi Gougeon, Minister for the Natural Environment, quoted in source 2. Source 2.
A regulatory impact assessment the Scottish Government wrote for the site names 6 protected features, 4 for biodiversity, including minke whales, and 2 for geology, including scars left by past submarine mass movements. That same assessment states that 154 nautical miles of pipeline already cross the trench, evidence the whales already share this water with existing infrastructure before a single wind farm cable is laid. Managing the site is meant partly to cut the risk of a minke whale becoming entangled in fishing gear there, the assessment states. The Southern Trench was only 1 of 4 new Marine Protected Areas named that day, alongside 12 new Special Protection Areas, and joined a Scotland wide network that reached 230 protected marine sites, 37% of the seas around Scotland, the same day.
The Southern Trench was 1 of the 4 new Marine Protected Areas named that day. The third row is the total size of the entire network after the addition, not a count of sites designated that day alone.
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| New Marine Protected Areas added that day | 4 |
| New Special Protection Areas added that day | 12 |
| Total protected sites across Scotland after that day | 230 |
What the closest comparable study found
The Southern Trench study has not published its own findings yet, so nobody yet knows the exact pattern of when minke whales use this specific stretch of water. The closest published evidence comes from a different, older study on the same coast. Between 2016 and 2018, researchers recorded minke whale calls in the Moray Firth, and found the whales present from May through November, with no calls detected at all in December or January. Calling peaked in June, July and October, and the whales called more at night than during the day. That pattern is the best guide available for what the new study is likely to find once its own 2 years are up, not a substitute for it.