Behavioral responses by migrating juvenile salmonids to a subsea high-voltage DC power cable

Risk Retirement—Decreasing Uncertainty and Informing Consenting Processes for Marine Renewable Energy Development

“…Laboratory and field studies on effects of EMF on freshwater fish species indicated that even large EMF do not appear to cause deleterious effects [65,66]. Other field studies were unable to detect responses on local marine animals [59,[67][68][69][70], or found that responses by electro-sensitive elasmobranchs did not change behavior significantly [55].…”

A current synthesis on the effects of electric and magnetic fields emitted by submarine power cables on invertebrates

“…Organisms' survival is unaffected by SPCs' magnetic emissions (Bochert and Zettler, 2004). When considering behavioural responses, field studies mainly conducted on teleost fish species revealed no evidence that magnetic fields act as permanent barriers to long-range migrations of either Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), green sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris), or European eel (Anguilla Anguilla) (Klimley et al, 2016;Öhman et al, 2007;Westerberg and Lagenfelt, 2008;Wyman et al, 2018). Testing the attraction-repulsion towards magnetic fields has been a goal for other studies, and these produced contrasting results between members of taxonomic groups (i.e., crustaceans, molluscs, fish, elasmobranchs, polychaetes) and different species (e.g., Bevelhimer et al, 2015Bevelhimer et al, , 2013Cada et al, 2011;Gill et al, 2009;Hutchison et al, 2018;Jakubowska et al, 2019;Scott et al, 2018).…”

The Interaction Between Resource Species and Electromagnetic Fields Associated with Electricity Production by Offshore Wind Farms

“…Eels that encountered an AC cable on their outward migration slowed down but passed over the cable (Westerberg and Lagenfelt, 2008). In contrast, a study of salmon smolts swimming parallel to an HVDC cable moved faster, and while there appeared to be no barrier to movement, misdirection increased their journey to the sea (Wyman et al, 2018). Although cable EMFs potentially influence homing and associated reproduction in species such as Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), which show natal homing to the same seabeds annually (Corten, 2002), they have not been studied.…”

“…A Patchwork of Knowledge from a Variety of Methods Field studies are advantageous in that they can assess cable EMF effects at true scales of influence and responses directly related to ecology. However, they can be disadvantaged by effect size (Type II error) (Franco et al, 2015) and confounding variables (e.g., reef effects, environmental forcing) (Taormina et al, 2018;Wyman et al, 2018). To overcome these issues, natural experiments and mesocosm trials have been adopted.…”