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<\/p>\nPermission has been refused for a guga hunt which would have seen hundreds of young seabirds killed on an uninhabited Hebridean island.<\/p>\n
For centuries, gannet chicks have been hunted for their meat each summer on Sula Sgeir, a small rocky island 40 miles (64km) north of Ness on Lewis.<\/p>\n
Modern hunts require a licence from public agency NatureScot, which rejected the application this year due to concerns about the impact on the gannet population.<\/p>\n
Animal welfare groups have welcomed the decision, but supporters accused campaigners of “bullying” a small island community.<\/p>\n
The decision to refuse a licence for Scotland’s last remaining guga hunt this year was taken by NatureScot’s board following a recommendation by officials.<\/p>\n
What is the guga hunt?<\/p>\n
Gannet chicks on Bass Rock were once hunted and sold in a market in Edinburgh [Getty Images]<\/p>\n
Hunting seabirds on Sula Sgeir goes back to the time of the Vikings, according to historian Donald S Murray, author of the book The Guga Hunters.<\/p>\n
Murray told BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast<\/a> that historically birds were a vital source of food for people living in Ness, Lewis, on the North Atlantic coast.<\/p>\n He said the area had “geographical difficulties”. Rough seas made fishing hazardous and there were challenges around the quantity and quality of the land, which was mostly moorland.<\/p>\n “It was a case of survival,” said Murray.<\/p>\n A group of 10 islanders, known as the Men of Ness, would spend about 10 days in August harvesting chicks, which are known as guga.<\/p>\n In the past, other parts of Scotland – including Orkney and Shetland – also had seabird hunts.<\/p>\n On St Kilda, before the archipelago was abandoned in 1930<\/a>, birds were killed for their meat and also oils for fuel and waterproofing, while the feathers were used for clothing and bedding. Eggs were also collected as food.<\/p>\n Gannet chicks taken from Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth were sold in a market in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n The meat has been described as tasting like a cross between kipper and steak or “salty goose” and, less flatteringly, as “rotten leather and fishy beef”<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other descriptions have included it being like a mix of anchovy paste and high-strength cod liver oil.<\/p>\n What are the arguments for and against the hunt? Campaigners outside the Scottish parliament during a protest in January [Getty Images]<\/p>\n Opponents say the hunt is no longer needed to feed islanders and describe the method used to kill the chicks as cruel.<\/p>\n Harvesting methods have remained largely traditional, according to a report by the Scottish Seabird Centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hunters use long poles fitted with a noose to catch chicks in their nests before being killed, usually by a blow to the head.<\/p>\n The birds are gutted, plucked and salted on Sula Sgeir before being taken by boat to Lewis where they are counted by a NatureScot official.<\/p>\n Harvests did not take place in 2022, 2023 and 2024 due to concerns around bird flu<\/a>.<\/p>\n A total of 485 birds were taken at the 2025 hunt. Hunters had sought a licence to take either 2,000 or 500 birds this year.<\/p>\n Sula Sgeir and nearby North Rona are covered by special area protection (SPA) designation<\/a> due to their seabirds, which also include fulmers.<\/p>\n Opponents say the hunt involves a “brutal death” for chicks [Getty Images]<\/p>\n Devon Docherty, Scottish campaigns manager at Protect the Wild, said refusing a licence was a “victory for compassion, for science and for common sense”.<\/p>\n She added: “Thousands of young seabirds have been spared from a brutal death because NatureScot chose to follow the evidence rather than simply rubber-stamp another licence to kill.”<\/p>\n More than 106,000 people signed a petition<\/a> calling for the Scottish government to prohibit the hunt.<\/p>\n The cultural significance of the hunt is recognised under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and modern hunts require a licence from NatureScot.<\/p>\n NatureScot’s premises in Inverness were vandlised earlier this year [Peter Jolly\/Northpix]<\/p>\n Agnes Rennie, is chair of Urras Oighreachd Ghabhsainn, the local community land group for the north of Lewis. She said: “The guga hunt is a centuries-old tradition which reinforces our unique communal identity and helps families keep ancient Gaelic customs alive and relevant in the modern world.”<\/p>\n Historian Donald S Murray said food security was not guaranteed, and argued that the hunt was not unique.<\/p>\n He said that in New Zealand sooty shearwater, also known as muttonbirds, were traditionally hunted on Rakiura, which is also known as Stewart Island.<\/p>\n Murray described the campaign against the guga hunt as “monstrous”.<\/p>\n Anti-guga hunt graffiti <\/a>was sprayed on walls at NatureScot’s headquarters in Inverness in February, and was followed by a rooftop protest in March<\/a>.<\/p>\n Murdo MacRitchie, of the Save Our Guga Harvest group, said peaceful protest was “entirely legitimate”, but criticised some of the opposition.<\/p>\n Ahead of NatureScot’s board meeting, he said: “People in Ness will understandably feel that this recommendation risks rewarding a campaign in which members of a small island community have been bullied and abused and publicly-owned property has been vandalised.”<\/p>\n He said Sula Sgeir’s gannet population projections were “positive” and he could not understand why a harvest of 500 birds was not supported by officials.<\/p>\n More on this story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Permission has been refused for a guga hunt which would have seen hundreds of young seabirds killed on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49874,17,49872,681,49875,49876,49873,49871],"class_list":["post-154070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-bbc-radio-scotland","tag-canada","tag-donald-s-murray","tag-getty-images","tag-guga-hunters","tag-island-community","tag-naturescot","tag-sula-sgeir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/bbc_us_articles_995\/e5f8866317bac54a1614534ba05d909a.jpeg\"\/)
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