Support for concerns over guga hunt

John Robertson's avatar
John Robertson
26 August 2010
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OneKind welcomes the Scottish SPCA’s decision to speak out against the tradition of guga hunting, branding the ancient practice of taking and killing around 2,000 gannet chicks death as “barbaric” and “inhumane”.

Advocates for Animals has been expressing its concerns about this hunt for years, and is delighted to learn that Scotland’s largest animal welfare organisation has now written to the Scottish Government asking that the licence that allows it to continue each year be revoked.

Every August, ten men from Ness, on the Isle of Lewis, sail out to the island of Sula Sgeir to hunt and kill the birds which are considered a delicacy in some quarters. Taking or killing birds at their nests is normally an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, but a special exemption applies to the guga hunt on Sula Sgeir.

Advocates for Animals’ Policy Director, Libby Anderson, told BBC Scotland on Monday 23 August that there was a fine line between tradition and anachronism, and that nowadays that the guga hunt fell firmly into the latter category.

Libby pointed out that the killing methods – hauling chicks from their nests on the cliffs, using nooses attached to 10-foot poles, so that they can be throttled or struck over the head – fell far short of the welfare standards that would be provided for domestic livestock.

Wild animals are as sentient as domesticated animals, and their welfare needs should not be ignored.

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. Advocates for Animals 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, can no longer be justified.

Chief Superintendent Mike Flynn of the Scottish SPCA has expressed his concern about the killing method used, saying: "They are struck on the head with a heavy implement until dead. A competent person may kill one or two birds outright with a single blow, but in our opinion most will take more than one blow to be killed.

"This has to be considered in the context of this particular species of bird as gannets have exceptionally strong necks and heavy skulls, which enable them to dive into the water for prey from very high heights and at great speeds."

"The killing of any animal must be carried out in the most humane manner possible and this practice has no place in modern society."

Advocates for Animals agrees, and hopes that the Scottish Government will heed this new call to leave the gannets of Sula Sgeir to nest in peace.

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