Michael Unwin

Marine Environmental Consultant and Researcher

Michael is a freelance marine environmental consultant and researcher who currently consults on offshore industrial activities, and is actively involved in ongoing studies concerning toothed whale interactions with longline fisheries. Michael began working for terrestrial environmental consultancies, covering oil spill and groundwater problems, before becoming involved in offshore environmental issues. Michael’s research has covered white shark population studies off the coast of South Africa, and currently includes being the project co-coordinator and joint researcher of an ongoing multi-collaborative study with the Commonwealth Office Polar Regions, CCAMLR (Commission for the Conservation for Antarctic Marine Living Resources) and South Georgia Government into longline fishery depredation through killer whales and sperm whales, and their interactions with the fishery at South Georgia.  

Away from his research, Michael's consulting topics have covered marine fisheries, fisheries management, marine biology, marine mammals, southern ocean seabird studies and the assessment of mitigation measures to reduce seabird mortality through interactions with industrial fishing operations.  Recently Michael has been working as an Marine Mammal Observer (MMO) and Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) operator, consulting FUGRO on UKCS and JNCC Guidelines, Exxon Mobil on the marine wildlife populations of Angola in relation to seismic activities, Centrica in relation to offshore windfarm engineering works, and Talisman in relation to well-head cutting and decommissioning works in the Northern North Sea. 

Michael’s knowledge covers the deep-sea environment, recording anthropogenic sound sources, recording cetacean vocalisations, working knowledge of seismic survey vessels and geophysical survey exploration methods.  Michael has extensive at-sea time on fishing and research vessels, experience with genetic survey techniques and the collection of biopsy samples from large marine fauna, and experience with satellite tags with specialist knowledge in marine wildlife tracking and biotelemetry studies.

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