Our reply (and others) to that letter in the Scotsman yesterday!
Scotsman letters
CAT PROTECTION
If E Campbell’s claim is correct, (letters 5 august 2025) then cats kill one quarter of all UK birds every year, which we very much doubt.
In dismissing as relatively small the number of birds that will be killed by Berwick Bank, he/ she also ignores the significant cumulative impact of wind farms and the fact that many of the birds that will be killed by Berwick Bank are in serious decline and, according to the RSPB and other wildlife charities,will“catapult some species towards extinction”.
They are not the same species which will be killed by cats in our back gardens.
Cats provide companionship for many, including the elderly and vulnerable in society. They provide a service in natural pest control, eliminating the need for poisons which affect the entire food chain and inflict a miserable death on many innocent creatures.
Regrettably it is true that where deterrence fails to reduce the risk of birds to aircraft, birds will be shot.
While we agree that jetting off on vacation a couple of times a year is unnecessary, there are unfortunately many other reasons that make flying a necessity.
We can’t do without cats or planes in our lives but there is absolutely no need for any more wind farms, on or offshore.
Aileen Jackson
Scotland Against Spin
East Renfrewshire
Bird brained
E Campbell’s letter of 5 August quoting the death rate of birds by various methods and the likely number by the Berwick Bank wind farm, misses one crucial point, that it will be an increase on previous numbers.
It is likely to be sea birds who will be the main casualties, not because cats or guns but because of machines that only work when the wind blows. Mechanical power production does not present that problem. C Lowson Hampshire
CABLE NEWS
Let’s be careful with those new Berwick Bank Wind Turbines.
While those new sea wind turbine scan supply“more than twice Scotland’s needs”, the power they manufacture has to be led from far out to sea to the land.
Twice over recent years off Orkney, the main cable that supplies them from the mainland has been mysteriously severed. Although it is once again mended, the reason for its being broken is not yet understood.
Surely there is a lesson here! I trust that the electricity from the new Berwick Bank power source is linked to the land by many separate cables, which hopefully arrive at widely varying points on the land.
Europe has recently been considering what action can be taken to prevent some possible enemy from severing cables that already exist between the UK and Europe and we must think likewise about the power coming from the Berwick Bank.
Archibald A. Lawrie
Kingskettle
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