Scottish seabird hunt cancelled for first time in 400 years

NatureScot refuses licence for hunt on Hebridean island of Sula Sgeir in which up to 2,000 gannet chicks are killed A controversial Scottish seabird hunt will not go ahead for the first time in 400 years, in what campaigners have called a “victory for common sense”. In the annual guga hunt, up to 2,000 gannet chicks are killed over a 10-day period on the uninhabited Hebridean island of Sula Sgeir, 40 miles north of Lewis and Harris. NatureScot, which is responsible for licensing, refused to allow this year’s hunt to go ahead, citing a potential “adverse impact” on gannet populations according to new modelling. Wildlife and animal rights organisations have long protested against the killing of the birds, which is part of a tradition that some say goes back to the Vikings, when the birds were hunted for food. The hunters, known as the Men of Ness, take the chicks from their nests in the nature reserve of Sula Sgeir with a noose on a long pole and kill them with a blow to the head.

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