ENVIRONMENT AT SEA: Marine Wildlife and wind generators

However, owing to the early stages of existing developments and associated monitoring projects, the ecological effects of generating energy from the marine environment are largely unknown."

He added: "Given that Scotland holds internationally important protected populations of seabirds, there is an urgent need to assess which seabird species are most likely to be affected by marine renewable energy developments."

According to a report published by the Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), since the past 25 years, the number of seabirds in the region have witnessed a decline.

The authors of the report said that a 53% decline was witnessed in the breeding of seabirds from 1986 to 2011.

The constant decline in population was attributed to factors like food shortages, non-native predators and weather conditions.

While the largest declines were noted in the Arctic skua (74%), Arctic tern registered a 72% decline in the population of seabirds, while a decline in black-legged kittiwake was at 66%.