Protesters confront NatureScot at biodiversity conference over guga hunt licence

A noisy protest erupted outside the Biodiversity + Business Live conference at the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh. Campaigners were challenging NatureScot over its role in licensing the controversial guga hunt.

From 8am on 15 July, protesters gathered with placards and megaphones outside the conference, which NatureScot is co-hosting. They accused Scotland’s nature agency of undermining its own biodiversity commitments by licensing the annual killing of gannet chicks.

Delegates arriving for the conference, including Scottish government ministers and UK business leaders, faced protesters chanting:

NatureScot, shame, shame! Gannets killed in your name!

Protect the Wild, one of the groups involved, said the vast majority of delegates responded positively to the demonstration. Many smiled, gave a thumbs-up or expressed support as they entered the conference. However, at least one attendee reacted angrily, confronting protesters as they demonstrated outside the venue.

NatureScot holds future of guga hunt in its hands

The guga hunt involves hunters travelling to the remote island of Sula Sgeir, around 40 miles north of the Isle of Lewis. There they take young gannets from their nests and kill them for a traditional delicacy.

This year, 2026, the guga hunters have requested to kill up to 2,000 gannet chicks. It has become the most controversial licence application in the hunt’s history. Following mounting scientific evidence, animal welfare concerns and unprecedented public opposition, NatureScot’s Board will decide on 3 August whether to grant the 2026 licence. This is the first time the decision has escalated to NatureScot’s senior leadership.

Today’s protest comes just weeks before that decision, with campaigners urging NatureScot to refuse the licence. Protect the Wild said the Board’s decision on 3 August will be a defining test of whether NatureScot’s commitment to protecting Scotland’s biodiversity is meaningful, or merely “words on paper.”

Speaking at the protest, Devon Docherty, Scottish campaigns manager at Protect the Wild, said:

It’s hard to imagine a more striking contradiction than a nature agency co-hosting a biodiversity conference while facilitating the mass-slaughter of protected native seabirds.

NatureScot’s job is to protect nature and wildlife, not outdated cultural traditions that harm them. It’s baffling that we’re even having to be here reminding them of that.

On 3 August, NatureScot has a choice: keep defending a cruel hunt that robs Gannets of their only chick, or show that their commitment to biodiversity is more than just words on paper.

Protect the Wild argues that the licensing landscape has fundamentally changed. It cites the “devastating” impacts of avian influenza on gannet populations, disturbance of other nesting seabirds, and recent evidence that the killing is inhumane.

The Scottish Animal Welfare Commission is the Scottish government’s official advisor on animal welfare. It recently concluded there is no feasible way to carry out the guga hunt humanely. Its report found that the hunt risks causing unnecessary suffering to gannet chicks, which are taken from their nests using noose-ended poles before being killed by repeated blows to the head with a wooden club.

Protect the Wild says the Commission’s findings should be “the nail in the coffin” for the guga hunt.

Featured image via Protect the Wild