The distribution of grey seals around the Scottish coasts outside the breeding season

In the UK, conservation of the population of grey seals and management of fish stocks have often come into conflict. The consensus is that this can only be resolved with detailed knowledge of the seals’ distribution on the coast and at sea, outside the breeding season. We present here, a large-scale, high-resolution analysis and synthesis of telemetry and aerial survey data on the marine movements and coastal distribution of grey seals. Our approach is a combination of modelling and interpolation based on these diverse data.