Marine Mammal Memories is a project led by UHI Shetland project to collate memories of marine mammals seen around Shetland in the past (between 1930s and 2000s -ish). This is being done to help better understand historic cetacean sightings and distributions and to compare this with what is seen today, in order to highlight and understand what has changed.
SMEEF supported the project to conduct an online survey and oral history interviews with Shetlanders to capture local knowledge related to historic marine mammal memories, to collate information related to Shetland’s marine mammals from archival material and records in collaboration with Shetland Archives, and produce communication materials about the project.
Funding was also used to support UHI Shetland to deliver a range of marine conservation activities, including within the Marine Mammal Memories, Restoring Shetland Marlie Meadows, and Risso’s Survey projects. Through deployment of funding for capital items, projects were able to purchase vital equipment, including: microphones for conducting oral history interviews, a seawater tank and pumping system for use in seagrass restoration, a thermal drone unit to be used for monitoring seal populations, camera equipment for photo-ID surveys of marine mammals, and a new acoustic monitoring platform, known as ‘SeaSound’.
In 2025 SMEEF was able to provide total grants of £95,279 to UHI Shetland to support this work using resources from the Nature Restoration Fund.