Profile
Ms Katherine Whyte:
Postgraduate Student
Research Overview:
Ms Katherine Whyte
Scottish Oceans Institute
East Sands
University of St Andrews
St Andrews
KY16 8LB
Fife
UK
tel: 01334 462629
fax: 01334 463443
room: 2.12
email: kfw5@st-andrews.ac.uk
Related Content:
research@st-andrewsSea Mammal Research Unit
School of Biology
Scottish Oceans Institute
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My PhD, at the Scottish Oceans Institute (SOI), focuses on how seals respond to offshore industrial activity. In particular, marine renewable developments, such as pile driving, wind farms and tidal energy extraction, pose a significant, yet poorly understood, risk to seals: noise can cause immediate hearing damage, turbine blades cause physical injury, and prolonged operations can potentially exclude seals from their natural habitat altogether.
Using telemetry data on harbour seals (Phoca vitulina), I am working to quantify the effect industrial activity has on seal behaviour and to what extent its impact can be mitigated by the use of acoustic deterrents.
My PhD is supervised by Gordon Hastie (SMRU), Debbie Russell (SMRU), Len Thomas (CREEM) and Carol Sparling (SMRU Consulting).