Animal welfare campaigners have called for talks on phasing out the “inhumane” hunt for infant gannets known as guga, which are killed by hunters on a remote Scottish island once a year.
OneKind and the League Against Cruel Sports said it should be slowly phased out in dialogue with the Hebridean islanders who see the hunt, which has been carried out for at least 400 years, as a cultural pursuit and as sustainable food harvesting.
Both groups are highly critical of a “stunt-driven” campaign to force the case for a ban higher up the political agenda, which was launched earlier this year led by Protect the Wild, an anti-hunting group formed in 2015, and other activists.
Their “creative disruption” included a 60-hour occupation of the roof of NatureScot, the conservation agency that licences the hunt, by Abolish the Guga Hunt, and a campaign by Protect the Wild’s founder, Rob Pownall, to win election to Holyrood dressed as a gannet.
Protect the Wild commissioned the Succession actor Brian Cox to narrate a graphic animated film; Cox said the practice was “needless cruelty”. Pownall said: “Gannet chicks are being snatched from their nests and bludgeoned to death for nothing more than a tradition.”
Robbie Marsland, the director of League Against Cruel Sport Scotland and a veteran of campaigns opposing Icelandic whaling and seal clubbing in Canada, said those tactics had been counterproductive, entrenching support for guga hunting on Lewis in the Western Isles.
Marsland said he supported two petitions calling for a ban – including a 183,000-signature one launched by Protect the Wild. However, he said, the best way to end the practice was through dialogue, by agreeing to a solution that “honours and respects” the tradition.
“It’s a hunt for food, no doubt about that,” he said. “It’s not a sport, it’s a tradition. People on Lewis don’t think it’s horrific.”
A spokesperson for Protect the Wild said its “bold, creative approach” had brought the issue to national attention. “Bringing a hidden cruelty into the light is never comfortable, but it is necessary,” they said. “Any issue that touches on culture, tradition and the treatment of animals will stir strong feelings on all sides. But we believe the public has a right to know what happens to wildlife in their country.”
Guga hunting is unique in the UK by having legal protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 because of its deep historical roots on Ness, a peninsula in northern Lewis, and its role as subsistence food-gathering.
Murdo MacRitchie, a spokesperson for the hunters, said the allegation their harvest was barbaric was a distressing caricature.
“Like many rural communities, we live close to our sources of food. On our crofts there are sheep, cattle and chickens. In the seas that circle us, we catch haddock, mackerel and ling. They are part of the food chain that has sustained island life for generations,” he said.
“Capture to stunning only takes seconds, and the bird is dispatched immediately. There is no pleasure in that timespan. As with any animal raised or taken as food, this is the hardest part of the procedure, but it is undertaken as a serious responsibility and never as an act of cruelty.”
NatureScot’s board is expected to approve a fresh licence for this year’s hunt, although it may lower the cull limit again after cutting it to 500 last year in response to anxiety over the effects of avian flu on the area’s gannet population.
Once a year, about 10 men sail out to Sula Sgeir, an uninhabited island 40 miles (64km) north of Lewis, and traditionally camped there for up to two weeks, living communally in stone bothies. After the quota was cut to 500, last year’s hunt was a much shorter daylong visit.
The guga, juvenile gannets that have not yet fledged, are snared on their cliffside nests using long poles with a retractable noose, and then clubbed unconscious before being decapitated; the carcasses are then cleaned, spatchcocked, singed on an open fire and salted, then stacked up and left to dry in the open air.
At their peak, about 2,000 prepared guga would be brought back. Regarded by aficionados as a delicacy, their intensely salty, fishy and gamey flavour is an acquired taste; novices can find it repellent. Even so, guga are sent to customers across the world.
In a new joint report, OneKind and League Against Cruel Sport Scotland said the legislation was outdated and gave guga hunting privileges no other animal-based food production, such as an abattoir, was allowed.
The report by Lorna Young said there was evidence the techniques were not humane, breaching the key licence requirement, and that it disturbed the fulmars, European storm petrels and Leach’s petrels also living on Sula Sgeir.
The 1981 act and statutory protections for animals in the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, which is now being reviewed, were based on imprecise definitions and out of step with modern evidence about animal suffering, their rights and sentience, Young argued.
“There is no independent oversight or monitoring of the guga hunt, hampering any effort to undertake an animal welfare impact assessment. Indeed, given the Scottish government’s public commitment to the evaluation of its policies, the lack of scrutiny of this licence condition appears particularly remiss,” the report said.
A NatureScot spokesperson said it would be carrying out a fresh gannet survey to check whether the population was stable.
“We will assess the 2026 licence application carefully to determine if granting it will affect the long-term stability of the gannet population on Sula Sgeir, in accordance with existing legal frameworks,” they said. “The assessment by NatureScot will be informed by the latest scientific evidence including an updated population viability analysis model.”
