Projects

LIVING ON THE EDGE – FEARING FOR THEIR FUTURE

The food base for this mixed population of seabirds and marine creatures around our North Sea coasts basically comes down to sand eels. The term covers a wide rage of small fish species all in the Sand Lance family.  As we are seeing, with warming seas the plankton the sand eels and their fry depend on is moving north, reducing the sand eel population and of course leaving smaller populations of sand eels to feed the seabirds chicks 

There is a greater threat to the sand eels, industrial over-fishing mostly by Denmark, especially in the North Sea area. This is having a devastating effect on the sand eel population and therefore seabirds of all species.

TO THE JOURNEY’S END – THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE ATLANTIC SALMON

Possibly for the first time, the life-long struggle of the Atlantic salmon has been documented on film from the North East of Scotland. Concluding a 7-year, self-funded project, supported by the Boards and Trusts of the rivers of the North East of Scotland, Aberdeenshire-based filmmaker Bernard Martin launched To ‘The Journey’s End’ at Macduff Marine Aquarium on Thursday 13th April 2017.

Intended as an educational resource, it is hoped that schools and colleges across the North East will use the film as a valuable learning tool to inspire local students to think about the conservation of the species. To The Journey’s End documents the desperate voyage of the Atlantic salmon from ocean to river and back again, driven by the desire to reproduce. The film opens on the rugged North East coastline. It's spring and tens of thousands of seabirds have come ashore to breed. Out at sea, another great migration is also taking place - Atlantic salmon are travelling the long distance back home to breed in their native rivers in the North East of Scotland.

SAVING SCOTLAND’S GIANT SKATE

The flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) is a critically endangered species with numbers greatly reduced from what they once were. The waters off the North West of the Scottish mainland and the Scottish Islands are considered the last stronghold for them.

This short film documents the discovery of a critical habitat for the flapper skate, an egg-laying site off Skye, and the story of how the area became a temporary marine protected area and what this means for the skate, the water users and for the future of the site.