Gannets on the Bass Rock, Firth of Forth. ©Lorne Gill
This grant from SMEEF has enabled the appointment of the new Seabird Restoration and Resilience Officer role within NatureScot. The role has been identified as crucial to ensuring priority predator reduction measures are carried out at the scale and pace necessary to address seabird declines, and to support the delivery of biosecurity actions from the Scottish Seabird Conservation Action Plan.
Key to this will be to establish the Seabird Predator Reduction and Biosecurity Project Advisory Group (PAG) to coordinate, facilitate and develop a programme of work in relation to INNS eradication and biosecurity at seabird colonies.
Predator reduction projects require a long lead-in time prior to implementation. The completion of thorough project design and operational planning phases of this work are critical to ensure success. This role will therefore carry out the groundwork to develop effective and robustly scoped projects that will provide long-term benefits to seabirds and can be funded through various mechanisms, such as compensation measures relating to offshore wind development.
This role sits outside the statutory duties required of NatureScot and is jointly funded through SMEEF’s Seabird Resilience Fund and Crown Estate Scotland.
SMEEF 2025 £80,000