WE NEED CATS, WE DON’T NEED TURBINES
THANK you to George Herraghty (Letters, October 1) for pointing out the devastating effects that wind turbines have on our bird population both on and offshore.
I would like to know how all the environmental bodies who are meant to be protecting our wildlife know that cats kill more birds than wind turbines. The carcases of most birds will never be found, being picked up by predators before they are spotted by wind farm operators who are unlikely to boast about how many birds or bats their turbines have killed. Cats don’t kill our birds of prey but wind turbines certainly do.
Cats provide companionship and act as a natural and more humane way of suppressing our rodent population rather than using poison or traps. We need them; we don’t need any more wind turbines, there are other options. I am however, the first to admit that there are too many cats killing our garden birds and other wildlife, but that is due to irresponsible owners who refuse to get them neutered, resulting in thousands of unwanted animals being abandoned and/or becoming feral and putting a never-ending strain on rescue centres throughout the country.
A bit of common sense from our politicians and certain members of the public would save countless bird lives, our precious landscapes and the sanity of the many rural residents who are being forced to live their lives surrounded by wind farms.
Aileen Jackson, Uplawmoor.
THE PENALTIES OF WIND WORSHIP
BOB Wolfenden (Letters, October 5) avers that spoiling our landscape is an acceptable price to pay for cleaner power and in the penultimate sentence of his letter states: “We just can’t have our pristine countryside and reliable power supplies without some penalties.”If only wind turbines were a reliable source of power I might agree with him, but given turbines only generate power when the wind blows they could hardly be described as “a reliable source of power”. Intermittent maybe, but definitely not reliable.
And of course higher electricity bills is one of the penalties we already suffer as a result of wind worship.
And given the recognised importance of peatlands as a valuable carbon sink it is hard to understand why the wholesale destruction of peatlands is permitted by our Scottish Government given its aspirations to be world leaders in fighting climate change.
Brian Bell, Kinross.
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