It has been a "disastrous" breeding season according to the RSPB for Scotland's seabirds, with cliffs usually covered with thousands of birds completely empty.

It has already been suggested it is climate change that is causing the problem by disrupting food supply, but more research needs to be done. It doesn't say in the article in what way global warming could have affected the food supply, so I think the RSPB are using the stock answer for anything that has gone wrong in the environment, although they could well be right.

Common terns and guillemots were the wost affected.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/high...904338.stm

There should be a rule that when articles, especially on big sites like the BBC, suggest that global warming is behind the problem they have to at least mention how it could be so we know there is some thought behind it!

It's all too easy to use the umbrella of climate change for anything these days, I bet if our scrooge of a Prime Minister gets piles, it would be blamed on climate change.

How much of this problem is caused by over fishing I wonder. There has been much made of the story about fish moving north - due of course to global warming, and yet it is also well known that fish stocks in the North Atlantic are much reduced because of over fishing. Now we all know that nature deplores a vacuum and if you remove an animal from an area, then more will move in from surrounding areas, but no one seems to have taken this into consideration when talking about fish moving north.

The problem is that everyone, especially politicians, seem to think no further than climate change now and other causes are going untested.

Over fishing could well be the cause, if there is not enough food there for the birds they will either move or decrease in numbers. I am sure that the RSPB is considering many different possibilities, hopefully they will release some information on what they think it is with some sort of evidence soon.

The problem is global warming is such a wide ranging subject and can affect so many things that even the experts don't seem to be really able to model all the results accurately. Could it also be that a mixture of over fishing and changing sea temperatures has affected fish stocks?

Last year the RSPB's 'Birds' magazine covered the disasterous sea bird breeding season around traditional scottish cliff nesting sites. They seemed to think it was to with the lack of sandeels around at that time, and many of the seabirds, including Puffins, depend upon these. The sandeels are disappearing because the plankton they depend upon is moving or disappearing from the area. The seas off those coasts are apparently warming, and even though it's only a little, it seems to be enough to mean that the entire food chain is being disrupted.

When you add pollution, development, fishing etc to the equation, it makes a bad situation worse. Incredibly, our seas aren't protected as yet. The RSPB is trying to get a Marine Bill introduced that will give some protection. It would be great if everyone on this site would go to the RSPB website and sign their petition to Gordon Brown to get such a bill introduced.

I would definitely sign, do you have a link to the petition?

The food chain seems strong, but it actually can be very fragile, as this case points out.

Hi, thanks - the link should be:
http://campaignwithus.rspb.org.uk/eactiv...an7a6fYwWu

but basically going to the main RSPB page at http://www.rspb.org.uk will enable you to click on a further link to get to it.

Thanks for that, when I get back today I will sign it. It seems very short sighted to not think about protecting our seas in the same way as we do land environment.

Thanks for that link. I have signed