Man in giant bird costume running for Scottish parliament

A man dressed in a giant bird costume is officially in the running to become a Member of Scottish Parliament. It’s one of the most unusual election campaigns Scotland has seen.

Robert Pownall is the founder of wildlife advocacy organisation Protect the Wild. He has announced that he’s standing as a candidate in Edinburgh Central. And he’s going to campaign entirely dressed as a giant gannet, to push for an end to the controversial guga hunt. He’s up against the likes of of SNP’s Angus Robertson.

The guga hunt is the UK’s last legal seabird hunt. It takes place annually on the remote Hebridean island of Sula Sgeir, where months-old gannet chicks are killed by a group of ten men who travel from the Isle of Lewis. While the practice originated in times of hardship as a source of sustenance, today the birds are killed primarily to maintain tradition, with their flesh considered a delicacy.

Northern gannets are native seabirds, and Scotland is home to almost half of the world’s population. However, data which Protect the Wild brought to light shows that Sula Sgeir is the worst performing gannet colony in Scotland.

Giant bird takes a stand for gannets

Pownall argues that the killing of wildlife for tradition is unjustifiable. Protect the Wild set up a Scottish government petition to ban the guga hunt. It has surpassed 125,000 signatures and will be up for debate by the next parliament.

The killing of wild birds is normally illegal. However, the guga hunt continues due to a legal exemption under Section 16 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981). Pownall is campaigning to remove this exemption as part of his candidacy. Dressed as a giant bird, he said:

I’m standing as an MSP candidate to force the guga hunt out of the shadows and into the political spotlight.

Gannet chicks are being snatched from their nests and bludgeoned to death for nothing more than a tradition. That clearly shouldn’t be happening, especially not in the middle of a biodiversity crisis.

Polling shows the vast majority of the Scottish people want the guga hunt to end. It’s high time this outdated exemption was removed from the law, and these magnificent gannets given the protections they deserve.

Pownall will campaign as a gannet throughout the election, and “will not appear out of costume”. He is calling on all political parties to commit to ending the guga hunt in the next parliamentary term.

Featured image via Protect the Wild