Environmental campaigners have blamed the deaths of thousands of dolphins on the technique.. Paula Radcliffe yesterday announced that she will not seek a third world cross-country title in France later this month because it would interfere too much with her preparations for the London marathon on 17 April. The site of the strandings is determined by factors including sea currents, local geography, prevailing winds, storms and fisheries activity.The reasons cited for strandings include sickness, disorientation, natural mortality, extreme weather conditions, or injury. One of the most recent and high-profile causes of death has been cited as “bycatch”, the accidental capture in animals in fishing nets.

Such incidents have prompted efforts to ban pair trawling, in which a large net is strung between trawlers, in British waters, amid reports that it has greatly increased strandings of dolphins and porpoises. In identifying key areas of the UK we hope that people will be particularly vigilant in these areas and help the work of the UK whale and dolphin stranding scheme.”The worst area in the UK was Cornwall, while the Outer Hebrides has the highest number of strandings for Scotland, and Gwynedd in Wales.Gerrans Bay and Veryan Bay in Cornwall. Thurlestone in Devon and Firth of Forth in Scotland were among the top 10 sites for strandings.While strandings can occur throughout the year, there were seasonal changes, according to the report. “Only a small percentage of the total number of dead dolphins and whales are washed up on our shores, so the recent dramatic increase in strandings represents a much larger number of deaths,” he said.”The help of individuals in reporting strandings, both on land and at sea, is vital to our research. The surge was attributed to winter strandings of short-beaked common dolphins and harbour porpoises in south-west England.Richard Sabin, whale and dolphin stranding scheme co-ordinator at the Natural History Museum, said that the total volume of deaths was likely to be much higher. The number of whale, dolphin and porpoise strandings has more than doubled in the UK in the past decade.
The figures published yesterday prompted calls for further monitoring of coastal areas in order to curb the death rate.The top 10 sites for strandings over the decade were listed in the Natural History Museum report, Out of the Blue .The report found that strandings rose from 360 in 1994 to 782 in 2004.

The biggest increase has been in the past five years, according to the report. Some years later, on hearing of the death of the bishop after being pitched on his head while riding, Huxley remarked, “For once, reality and his brain came into contact, and the result was fatal.”EDDIE MIZZI Oxford. Any chance you could see your way to similarly fund improvements to the appalling Virgin Trains service from London to Holyhead, so that I may arrive home from work in record time?MADELEINE TENNANT Mickle Trafford, Cheshire Final argument Sir: Your correspondent Joe Walmwell is right to name T H Huxley as Bishop Wilberforce’s opponent in the evolution debate at Oxford in 1861 (Letters, 7 March). From the website virginatlanticglobalflyer : “The FAI’s rules state that a record attempt must start and finish at the same airfield and cross all meridians of the globe … The course must not be less than 36,787.559 kilometres (around 23,000 miles) which is equal in length to the Tropic of Cancer … The course must also be kept away from the North and South “Frigid Zones”, defined as being at latitudes of over 66degrees 33minutes.”IAN WILLIAMS Surbiton, SurreySir: Well done Sir Richard Branson for providing the funds to make it possible to establish a record for flying round the world. Obesity was not much of a problem, but nobody starved.TERRY EATON Milton under Wychwood, Oxfordshire Due process in Ulster Sir: Gerry Adams is right that the people accused of the murder of Robert McCartney are entitled to “due process” (Monday interview, 7 March), but, having observed years of IRA “due process” in Northern Ireland, I doubt I am the only one who finds it hard not to puke when I hear him make the observation.PATRICK MURPHY Nottingham Flying record Sir: The answer to Michael Shoesmith’s question, “Who defines ’round the world’?” (letter, 8 March) is the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI).

If embraced on a large scale in the UK, again even more imports will be needed with the same result.Let us have some common sense.G G A CRISP Alton, HampshireSir: Your correspondent Alan Malcolm (letter, 5 March) raises the spectre of malnutrition if city dwellers are denied imports of such things as bananas, oranges, cane-sugar, lemons, grapes, rice etc.Those things could not be freely imported during the Second World War, but surviving Londoners emerged generally better nourished in 1945 than they had been in 1939, thanks to the carefully devised dietary controls imposed by ration books. It is precisely because Muslims respect and value their bodies that they do not wish to expose them to anonymous public gaze.Of course we English cannot help thinking the way we do because we inherited our distorted idea of Islam and of sexuality from western Christianity which, when it laid down the basis of our culture and thought, decided sex was bad and all pleasure sinful. The Church rigorously condemned Islam precisely because of its more positive and humane view. For example, the Koran insists all adult Muslims have a fulfilling sex life and it sees the purpose of sex as (shock, horror!) physical pleasure, and not procreation as our Christian tradition insists.If we are so advanced, where is the Western version of Arabic love poetry and The Perfumed Garden? Quite simply, it doesn’t exist.WYNNE GREENHALGH Cirencester, GloucestershireSir: The digambara, or “sky-clad”, sect of the Jain religion consider it a crucial religious observance to wear no clothing whatever. Can we assume that their children are now entitled to go to school in such a natural state?NICK ARROW Leeds Feeding illusions Sir: Why is it that when dealing with agriculture and the environment (“Food costs £4bn more than we think”, 3 March) the media slip into some never-never land of their own? Why is unscientific science tolerated here where it would not be in, say, physics?The reality is that British agriculture cannot survive without subsidies; without them even more food will have to be imported using even more food miles. Rather than “fleeing” the country I simply became a British subject in 1978 and remained in the UK where I had by then completed my schooling and musical training.Having thereby missed out on two years of compulsory active military service in favour of a performing career – which the army training would have rendered impossible – a threat of prison has prevented my return to Singapore despite many pleas on my behalf.This has become a very painful situation since my parents are now old and can no longer travel. Farmers are not going to subsidise uneconomic production on their farms out of other income.Organic production is extremely inefficient; there is no way that the world can be fed like this Yields are simply too low, losses too great.

I still sincerely hope one day to be able to amend this state of affairs and return both to see my family and to perform there once again.MELVYN TAN London W11 Islamic dress codes Sir: Andrea Clyndes (Letters, 7 March) knows nothing about Islam if she thinks Muslim women are “prudish” and “puritanical” and dress as they do because they are “ashamed” and “afraid of the female body” The exact opposite is the truth. For this he should be applauded.IAN HUNT London N10 Musical exile Sir: I would like to amend the version of my status regarding Singapore which appears in David Lister’s “Brimful of Asia” (28 February). The death of Yasser Arafat, though, and the Prime Minister’s relationship with the US President have now helped the US to re-engage with the process, such that the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was also able to be present at the meeting, where she urged Israelis to avoid taking actions that could harm the fragile peace process.Without the relationship of trust between the British government and US administration, would such progress have been possible? Despite opprobrium from some quarters, the Prime Minister has remained steadfast in his commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and this is now producing results. Speeding is speeding, the law is the law, and, let me say this before anyone else does, a child killed by a car travelling at 37mph, as improbable as it might be on a dual carriageway at 11pm, is a tragedy.Anyway, whether you think that penalties for speeding are absurdly draconian or not draconian enough, there I was, in my best bib and tucker, in court. I’m a pretty law-abiding chap, or at least have been ever since I stopped shoplifting cans of Cresta in my early teens, and the prospect of a court appearance had filled me with dread for weeks beforehand.The summons said Brian Viner vs the Chief Constable of West Mercia, which seemed worryingly one-sided, like Dagenham & Redbridge vs Chelsea. This is turn gave democrats strength and put pressure on their authoritarian leaders to instigate some reform.