Far-field effects of impulsive noise on coastal bottlenose dolphins

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Bill Ruck, Moray First Marine and colleagues from the University of Aberdeen for assistance with the data collection. We are also grateful to Drs. Nathan Merchant and Adrian Farcas (CEFAS) for the provision of the data on the noise modeling and their valuable comments during the development of this work. The project benefited at all stages from input provided by the scientific steering groups and stakeholder groups established by UK and Scottish Governments to support the work conducted around these regional oil and gas and renewables projects. FUNDING Financial support for this study was provided through a series of consortia funded projects that involved the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), Scottish Government, Oil and Gas UK Ltd., COWRIE, NatureScot, The Crown Estate, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Beatrice Offshore Wind Ltd., and Moray Offshore Wind Farm (East) Ltd. OFB was funded by the Fundación “la Caixa” (Becas Posgrado, 2015) and their support was greatly appreciated. The authors declare that this study received funding from three commercial developers: Oil and Gas UK Ltd., Beatrice Offshore Wind Ltd., and Moray Offshore Wind Farm (East) Ltd. However, these funding bodies had no input into the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication.Peer reviewedPublisher PD