Naturescot last year stood on the side of cruelty rather than environmental protection, granting the licence for the Guga hunt. A "tradition" of killing of 500 juvenile gannets of the isle Sula Sgeir in Scotland. This is a tradition dragged onwards from the C15th and like the whaling and egg collecting that once dotted the shore, came out of need. It continues on as a "fun" reinactment of the historic for the sake of tradition on a otherwise protected isle.

Sula Sgeir is a otherwise uninhabited remote nature reserve, home to 10,000 gannets In the peak of their breeding season. Gannets are one of the largest sea birds in the Atlantic and are on the amber list in the UK as a moderate conservation concern. Like with many seabirds on a national level they've struggled especially so I'm recent decades from overfishing, bird flu and climate breakdown. Rightfully outside of this hunt, it is completely illegal to kill or harm them. So why this contradiction?. Why must 500 had been killed last year with possibly many more again in future?

Having battled through recent bouts of avain flu and just begining to flourish again, the birds that pair for life, now as it approaches the summer, have to go through a traumatic disturbance. They have to loose In what should be soon the moment of fledging, 500 of it's young. They have to be killed by the hands of men, hanged by ropes and poles grabbed at random and beaten by a club to the head to be salted, brined and to returned to Ness as a scarce delicacy for the few.

500 deaths and two weeks of unregulated disturbances of wildlife for the sake of tradition. For the sake of a few lottery selected men to trail their "survival skills" and kill what otherwise is a protected bird. A tradition that contradicts Naturscots values in protecting Scotland's wildlife and spaces and allows the entire isle to be trampled, abused and harmed. Naturescot understands this to be a contradictory tradition even lowering the number of licensed killings from 2000 in the last hunt of 2021, to 500 in 2025. So let's make this 500 the last. Not 400 next year and perhaps a few less next, but 2025 the last Guga hunt. Let's give this isle and it's birds the protection and the recognition it deserves. 

Together Let us end one of Scotland's greatest contradictions and have Naturescot take account and put into legal writing that 2025 will be the last of the hunts. It's time for Naturescot to "make space for nature" on the isle of  isle Sula Sgeir rather than Acceptions and excuses for the sake of the few.