Brixham Marina Seal Watch!

South Devon is one of the few locations fortunate to regularly see rare grey seals. Based in Brixham, The Seal Project works across the South West surveying seals around the coastline. Covering Torbay and the South Hams, as well as inland waterways, they encourage others to respect, support and protect the fantastic seals with whom we share our shores. They observe, record & recognise the seals as they return time and again to our shores. Following their lives, their adventures, misadventures and ensuring their long-term conservation, protection and welfare.

Through the work of The Seal Project, we know that the bustling Brixham Marina has become a regular stop off for grey seals, which grabs and inspires the attention of locals and tourists alike. Look but don’t approach is the golden rule with seals which makes the ability to observe safely and respectfully from afar important. Unless you’re nearby, but not too close, seeing these local celebrities is difficult and sometime dangerous for all parties involved. Until now. We want to provide the opportunity for everyone to see (but not approach!) and get to know our magnificent Brixham seals. Crucially, we want to be able do this without causing any undue stress or harm to our magnificent animal friends.

To do this The Seal Project is partnering with SeaGen, to gain access to their first early-prototype biodiversity and environmental monitoring buoy, the Baseline Buoy, for live, autonomous and continual monitoring of the seals in Brixham Marina. You can learn all about the Baseline Buoy here www.seagen.io

The Baseline Buoy was designed to generate environmental and biodiversity data which is viewable through the Baseline app: video and audio recording of flora and fauna, and environmental data, like pH and temperature. It uses AI to assess the data it generates, e.g. identifying species and events, and providing context to its observations. The data and insight gathered is available live to members of the community, with larger data sets available for analysis at any time. We think it’s the perfect way for everyone to interact with our local seals without causing disruption, distress or harm, and will simultaneously put Brixham at the forefront of the global stage on environmental monitoring.

The ‘baseline data’ we generate in Brixham Marina will play an essential role in monitoring the local seal population, their movements, habits and understanding the impact that human activities are having on them. This is hopefully just the first step, as this prototype buoy forms a keystone data collection solution in what will become a broader data gathering network across the South Devon region and beyond, inspiring local communities to play a crucial role in protecting habitats and nature, whilst putting Brixham at the very heart of it.

The Baseline Buoy system will provide:

1. Live, freely available video feed (via the free Baseline App) above and below the water in Brixham Marina in an area that seals frequent.

2. Live, freely available environmental data for Brixham Marina (via the free Baseline app) including: temperature, pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen

3. Summary reports for environmental data (freely available) and seal behaviour (restricted access to protect our beautiful seals, available upon request to The Seal Project)

With your support we can help observe and understand community dynamics within the Grey Seal population in Brixham Marina. We are creating a global monitoring network, one local unit at a time. Please support Brixham to join the network, download the Baseline app and engage with this wonderful seal population in a safe and non-threatening way to the seals!

Project costs for the Baseline Buoy:

We’ll be making our all new singing and dancing Baseline Buoys available for purchase in the new year. In the meantime, we are keen to utilise our existing prototype in the wonderful Brixham Marina setting: it may not be as pretty as the future versions, but it functions similarly! The more we raise, the longer we can deploy and monitor for. The amazing people at Brixham Marina have offered us free mooring and the use of their wifi connection, so we’re keeping costs down as much as we can.

As an early prototype (which cost us >£10,000 to build), it’s going to need a lot more TLC than the future versions, so we are looking to cover refurbishment costs (£1000), deployment costs (£250), maintenance costs (£100 pcm, we’d like a 6 month deployment at least) and a contribution towards costs to tag images of specific seals so we can train an algorithm to recognise individuals and behaviours (£1000). The more we raise, the longer we’ll be able to keep the buoy operational in the marina, and the more updates the unit will get in the future!

PS If you’re reading this and would like water monitoring in your community, get in touch and we’ll make it happen when Baseline Buoy launches in earnest next year!