Each August two thousand gannet chicks, known as gugas, are killed on Sula Sgeir by hunters from Ness, on the Isle of Lewis. The birds are taken from their nests by a noose fixed to a long pole, then killed by being struck on the head with a heavy implement.
OneKind has been raising concern about the guga hunt for many years. In 2004, OneKind wrote to the Scottish Executive seeking revocation of the licence and we have raised the welfare issues consistently over the last eight years. We were pleased that these concerns were supported last year by the Scottish SPCA, which wrote to the Scottish Government asking that the hunt licence be revoked, and is now seeking more stringent monitoring of the hunt by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH).
Responsibility for licensing the hunt was transferred this year from the Scottish Government to SNH, which confirmed earlier this month that the licence would be reviewed over the course of the next year. OneKind will be raising the welfare concerns once again with the agency.
The killing methods fall far short of the welfare standards that would be provided for domestic livestock, but wild animals are as sentient as domesticated animals, and their welfare needs should not be ignored. The Scottish SPCA has described the slaughter method as “abhorrent” and called for it to be banned.
The capture and restraint process is likely to provoke escape behaviour in adult birds, or tonic immobility in the chick being caught, as well as collateral damage and activity to other birds in the colony. While these are natural escape behaviours, they are only provoked by the behaviour of humans and we see this as unnecessary and inhumane.
The guga hunt is no longer carried out for subsistence reasons, but to provide a delicacy that is eaten by a fairly small number of people. OneKind considers that the suffering of these very young birds, and the distress of the parent birds whose nests are disturbed as they attempt to rear their chicks, cannot be justified. There is a fine line between tradition and anachronism, and nowadays the guga hunt falls firmly into the latter category.
I live in Orkney where the eating of seabirds and their eggs was part of a normal diet as they didn’t have a tesco’s back in the day it was simply live off of the land and sea or you starved. With all our modern day quisine does this really have to go on?? If its for simple over population, find a humane way to capture them. If its not and the few still want there “special meal” rear the birds!!! we live in a word where we over eat and waste food, this to me is more like waste lives!
This has to stop ! This is cruel & heartless killiing . These baby chicks deserve to live!! Please do the rite thing & stop this killing!!!
Doesn’t look a lot different from pheasants needlessly being slaughtered. Millions are reared in this country simply to be used as shooting practice for the affluent. The birds, once again, are only eaten by a few and most of these slauightered birds are discarded because they are unwanted.
Child labour and treating women as second-class citizens used to be “traditional” so where do we draw the line? If that excuse were used for everything, we’d never move forward at all. There’s a lot of evidence to show how cruel this practice is and the fact it continues solely to provide a fancy meal for a handful of people makes it even worse.
This is barbaric and totally uncalled for! It needs to be stopped and the sooner the better.
It is astonishing that this cruelty is allowed to continue.The people of Ness cannot be allowed to cherry-pick their history like this.Once upon a time the Gannets provided necessary food but not nowadays.If the Ness folk want to go back to living in caves or turf shacks then perhaps I could accept the Guga hunting.They have turned their backs on most of their heritage so they should be forced stop the Gannet hunting.
I am absolutely amazed this goes on in such a barbaric way, if only folk would stop eating meat many creatures would have full and happy lives.