With regard to the refugee crisis, yacht skipper, Scott Macrae, says: "People have been dying for months. It's sad that it has taken this photo [of Aylan Kurdi] to shock people into action" (Scottish skipper's encounters with refugees, News, September 6). Your leader states that "despite heaps of evidence provided by humanitarian and human rights organisations over decades, Western nations have collectively failed to help those in need" (Only political leaders can ensure turning point in refugee crisis, Editorial, September 6).
While the deaths of Aylan and his brother, Galip and the other children caught up in this crisis are tragic, there are many more children who have been dying needlessly, not due to war, and this has been going on for decades. Countries in the supposedly civilised West, including the UK, import food from countries where people, including children, are starving. Foods which these starving people could eat direct are instead given to "food animals" in the West, to fatten them up, for the animal-based diet that many in the West choose to eat.
This is a situation where we don't have to wait for governments to act or to do the right thing. Each and every individual can make a personal choice – continue to eat an animal-based diet, thus stealing foods from starving people, including children, who desperately need it, or change to a plant-based diet.
Sandra Busell
Edinburgh
Sinclair Dunnett compares the shooting of seals to the culling of deer in the highlands and says that 50,000 red deer are killed annually just to keep the population level (Topic of the week: the ethics of seal killing, Letters, September 6). The main difference between the two species is that the grey and common seals found around the Scottish coast are in decline and are protected mammals whereas red deer are not endangered and are in fact kept at unnaturally high levels by a lack predators and the interests of the shooting estates.
And no, it's not because of their "big wet eyes" that I think seals should be protected but because we have a legal and international duty to look after all our endangered species.
Iain Mackenzie
Machrie, Isle of Arran
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here