We Protested Outside NatureScot as their Board Discussed the Guga Hunt
This morning, we were there. As NatureScot’s Board gathered to discuss the Guga hunt licence application, we were outside their headquarters – with placards, megaphones and Gannet suits, reminding them that they have the power to stop this hunt, and the responsibility to do so. Yesterday, we asked you to email NatureScot’s Board ahead of […]
I went to the place where the Guga hunt begins. I didn’t expect to see this.
On the northernmost tip of the Isle of Lewis lies Ness, a remote district comprising 16 small villages. At first glance, there is little to distinguish Ness from countless other Scottish coastal communities. Quiet villages of weather-beaten houses, narrow roads and rugged coastline overlooking the Atlantic. But there’s one thing that makes Ness unlike anywhere […]
Labour MP Loses his Temper at Guga Hunt Protestors
We appear to have pissed off a Labour MP. Allow us to explain why we’re not sorry. Torcuil Crichton, Labour MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (the Western Isles in Scotland), accused us and other anti-Guga hunt campaigners of “attention-seeking” “virtue-signalling” behaviour and of having a “saviour-complex” for trying to stop the annual killing of […]
New polling shows huge surge in opposition to the Guga hunt.
The tides are well and truly shifting against the Guga hunt – the cruel annual killing of Gannet chicks off the North West coast of Scotland – and we have the stats to prove it. Our latest polling shows that 77% of Scottish people with a view want the Guga hunt to be banned. In […]
The Guga Hunt and the Weaponisation of Indigenous Identity
Guest post by Innogen Duncan. Proponents of the highly publicised Guga hunt have embedded claims about local food resilience and sovereignty within their defences of the hunt. Arguments from these angles are often attention grabbing for the general reader. This is in part due to the hotly discussed political nature and importance of the global […]
We Just Tried to Hand NatureScot the Biggest Petition in Their History
We just travelled to NatureScot headquarters carrying two things: A giant Gannet suit. And a giant cheque representing what is now the largest petition NatureScot has ever received. Over 163,000 people have now signed the call for Scotland’s nature agency to stop the licensed slaughter of Gannet chicks on Sula Sgeir. HELP US REACH 200K […]
SCANDAL: Guga hunt island is Scotland’s worst performing Gannet colony.
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. […]
Abolish the Guga Hunt activists arrested after 60+ hour rooftop occupation
Three sleepless nights. Two arrests. One clear demand: End the Guga hunt. At 4am on Friday 20th March, while most of the country slept, two men climbed onto the roof of NatureScot headquarters in Inverness. Perched on the highest ridge above the building’s glass atrium, they locked themselves to a railing, unfurled a banner, and […]
Gordon Ramsay cooked young seabirds into a ‘delicacy’ and the footage is hard to stomach.
Footage has emerged showing celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay travelling to a remote Scottish island in search of a “rare” “delicacy”. But what he uncovered wasn’t cuisine – it was pure cruelty. In the four minute long clip, filmed as part of an episode of his series The F Word, Ramsay sets out for the Isle […]
GOOD NEWS! for the campaign to end the Guga hunt
Today, the Scottish Parliament ensured this petition will carry forward – and with it, a real chance to change the law. Today, MSPs made an important decision. They unanimously decided to keep Rachel Bigsby’s petition to end the Guga hunt open and carry it forward to the next Parliament. Here’s why this matters. The current […]
Silent Protest Outside Scottish Parliament as Guga Hunt Petition Hits 100,000
Today outside the Scottish Parliament, we stood in silence. Tape over our mouths. Not because we had nothing to say. But because more than 100,000 people have spoken out against the Guga hunt – and they are now in danger of being silenced. In less than 48 hours, the Petitions Committee will make their final […]
Gannets: The hunters don’t want you to see this letter…
You’re about to read something the Guga hunters never expected the public to see. They thought it would stay private. They were wrong. The Guga hunt – the annual killing of Gannet seabird chicks on the Scottish island of Sula Sgeir – was written into law in the 1950s when wild birds were given legal […]
The Guga Hunt campaign is growing and so is the pressure on NatureScot
Since our last update, the campaign to end the Guga hunt has moved into a new phase. The petitions have grown, parliamentary scrutiny continues, and pressure on NatureScot is rapidly mounting. We want to bring you fully up to speed on what’s happened, and what comes next. The Government Petition: 90,000 Voices and Rising The […]
Grouse Moor Licencing: the legal mess we always thought it would be
To the surprise of no one, NatureScot (the executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government responsible for the country’s natural heritage) has caved in to the demands of the shooting industry – trashing the overhyped grouse moor licencing system just months after its implementation. Licencing was brought in (allegedly) to stop the raptor persecution […]