SCANDAL: Guga hunt island is Scotland’s worst performing Gannet colony.

New FOI documents expose a secret NatureScot would rather bury.

Sula Sgeir is Scotland’s worst-performing Gannet colony - yet the body responsible for protecting it is still allowing birds to be killed.

Each year a group of men travel to the remote island of Sula Sgeir in northern Scotland to kill young Gannet seabirds - known as “Guga” - as part of a traditional hunt. The defenceless chicks are pulled from their nests and bludgeoned to death with a rod before they can even fly. Their flesh is eaten as a local delicacy.

The activity can only happen if NatureScot, Scotland’s official nature agency, gives out a licence for it.

And they do. Year after year.

Last year, they allowed 500 chicks to be killed, saying this number is unlikely to affect the stability of the Gannet population. They continue to insist there are no long-term impacts and no cause for concern.

But their own data says otherwise.

Data doesn’t lie

Via a Freedom of Information request, we obtained documents that show Sula Sgeir is uniquely underperforming compared to every other comparable Gannet colony in Scotland.

In a scientific assessment used to inform the 2025 licence, NatureScot’s advisor warns that Sula Sgeir is the only Special Protection Area (SPA) for Gannets in Scotland whose population has shrunk.

Between 2001, when the island was first designated as an SPA, and 2024, the number of apparently occupied nesting sites at Sula Sgeir fell by almost 2 percent. Meanwhile, all other colonies showed increases between 9 percent and 314 percent.

Bird flu is not the cause of the decline, the hunt is

And this is where it starts to raise serious questions. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreaks caused a further 23 percent crash in 2023 - but the decline was already in progress.

Even before HPAI devastated the colony, “the percentage growth at Sula Sgeir…was 18%, which is considerably lower than the population growth recorded at all other SPA colonies, which varied from 44% to 326%,” says the advisor.

They conclude: “This indicates that the population growth rate has been suppressed compared to other gannet populations outwith the influence of HPAI”.

So if bird flu is not to blame for the overall decline on Sula Sgeir, then what is?

Could it be that Sula Sgeir is the only Gannet colony in Scotland where chicks are being killed by humans? Every year, thousands of chicks are slaughtered at their most vulnerable and critical life-stage, sending shockwaves of disturbance throughout the entire colony.

To continue suggesting the Guga hunt is not damaging this population is farcical. It is very, very hard to believe that NatureScot issued last year’s license knowing all of this.

The bottom line

Let’s be very clear about what this means.

This means that NatureScot gave out a licence last year knowing that:

• Sula Sgeir was the only Gannet SPA in Scotland to fall below citation level.

• Sula Sgeir has, by far, the slowest growth rate of any comparable colony.

• The population has been suppressed, and bird flu is not the cause.

NatureScot’s number one duty is supposed to be protecting and conserving nature - not enabling its destruction. We cannot let this go on.

Sign the petition today and demand NatureScot stop licensing the slaughter of Gannet chicks on Sula Sgeir. If we don’t act now, hundreds more chicks will be killed this year. Please add your name before it’s too late for them.

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