Animal Groups Call to Phase Out Guga Hunt Through Dialogue
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- OneKind and the League Against Cruel Sports called for talks to phase out the guga hunt through dialogue with Hebridean islanders, whose 400-year-old practice on Ness, Lewis, they call "inhumane."
- The two groups criticised Protect the Wild's "stunt-driven" tactics — including a 60-hour roof occupation of NatureScot's offices and founder Rob Pownall's gannet-costumed Holyrood election bid — saying those tactics entrenched support for the hunt on Lewis.
- Robbie Marsland, director of League Against Cruel Sport Scotland, said the best way to end the practice was a solution that "honours and respects" the tradition, noting: "It's a hunt for food... People on Lewis don't think it's horrific."
- A joint report by Kirsty Jenkins found evidence the killing techniques breach the licence's humane-killing requirement and disturb fulmars, European storm petrels, and Leach's petrels on Sula Sgeir, with no independent oversight of the hunt.
- NatureScot said it will conduct a fresh gannet population survey and assess the 2026 licence application with an updated population viability analysis, after cutting last year's quota to 500 — down from a historic peak of about 2,000 — over avian flu concerns.
- Hunters' spokesperson Murdo MacRitchie defended the practice as a serious responsibility, saying "capture to stunning only takes seconds, and the bird is dispatched immediately," and called the "barbaric" allegation a "distressing caricature."
- Guga hunting holds unique legal protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 — making it the only UK bird hunt licensed for food — while the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 is now under Scottish government review.
Why it matters: The League and OneKind are pushing for a managed phase-out rather than a confrontational ban. Their joint report — finding the hunt has no independent oversight and evidence the techniques breach the licence's own humane-killing rule — directly feeds into NatureScot's 2026 licence review and the Scottish government's review of the 2006 animal welfare act.
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