This article is a refreshingly balanced review of the debate surrounding the guga hunt at Sula Sgeir. Guga is the salted meat of chicks of the northern gannet. These birds nest on islands like Sula Sgeir. Each year, a group of men from the villages of Ness in Lewis go there and harvest the birds by killing them as humanely as possible, cleaning and salting them. It is apparently a delicacy. The number of birds culled was decreased from 2,000 to 500 in recent times.
There is a very vocal campaign to deny the guga hunt a renewed license, for reasons of animal welfare. Videos are doing the rounds of the birds being culled and processed. That is certainly not a pleasant process, but think of it this way. Do you want to think about the process that turns that cow in a field into a steak on your plate? In the case of the guga, that process is in full public view. You may as well petition the government to ban slaughterhouses.
