Tom Ballantyne of Stop Climate Chaos blames climate change for the decline in native seabird populations around the British Isles (Letters, 9 November). This is not an uncommon charge, though it is rather difficult to square with the large numbers of fish that are supposedly moving north to escape warming oceans.
A rather more prosaic explanation, which is still a man-made one, is down to the Danes. The Danish, just like the Spanish, cannot get enough of our North Sea resources, especially sand eels, which form a large proportion of sea birds’ diets.
Thanks to the EU, which is the favourite institution of the SNP administration, every Tom, Dick and Harry in Europe can sail north into our waters and snaffle large quantities of fish.
Television programmes have shown that very little control of the fish off-loaded at some of these continental fishing ports is exercised.
Thus, the bird population is diminishing. It will continue to do so until we can keep out foreign vessels and police the North Sea and other British waters without fear of EU meddling.
Andrew HN Gray