For the past week I have been working off the coast of Kings Lynn, down south near cambridge. It is a protected habitat called the wash, where harbour seals regularly haul out, and is near the location of a new windfarm installation. When putting in the windfarm, piledrivers create immensely loud low frequency sounds. There is a concern that this may damage the hearing of the nearby seals. So a team from st andrews captured 25 seals from the area, and we used auditory evoked potentials to determine the hearing thresholds of the animals. To see how close they are travelling to the windfarms, we have attached GPS transmitters to them. The results will tell us if the seals travelling near the farms have damaged hearing, and if the habitat use is different near the windfarms.
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