Effects of impulsive noise on marine mammals : investigating range-dependent risk

This work was funded as part of the Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme, with additional resources from the National Capability funding from the Natural Environment Research Council to the Sea Mammal Research Unit (grant no. SMRU1001). Recordings of piling and seismic noise from the Moray Firth were collected with the support of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Scottish Government, Oil and Gas UK Ltd., COWRIE, EU DOWNVInD project, Talisman Energy (UK) Ltd. and Scottish & Southern Energy. Thanks also to Helen Bailey and Keith Needham for making field recordings, Francesca Marubini for comments and suggestions on drafts of the manuscript, and to Stephen Robinson at the National Physics Laboratory and Douglas Gillespie at the Sea Mammal Research Unit for discussions and guidance about acoustic analyses.Peer reviewedPublisher PD