Why was there a giant seabird at the Edinburgh Central election count?

It was the face-off of the night: SNP veteran and former cabinet minister Angus Robertson lost his seat in Edinburgh Central to Scottish Greens candidate Lorna Slater. This marked the first time the Scottish Greens have ever won a constituency seat at Holyrood.

But it was the giant seabird onstage that stole the show.

As the Edinburgh Central result was announced live, viewers across the UK watched a six foot gannet, standing beside the night’s two political heavyweights, unfurl a placard reading “END THE GUGA HUNT.” The image went out on the evening’s peak BBC and ITV news slots, and splashed across newspapers, websites and social media the following morning.

The Edinburgh Central gannet

By that point, one question was on everyone’s lips: who was inside the bird costume?

The answer is Robert Pownall, founder of the wildlife campaigning organisation Protect the Wild, who stood as an independent candidate in Edinburgh Central on a single-issue platform – to end the guga hunt, the last legal seabird hunt in the UK. He said:

I stood in this election for one reason: to get people talking about the guga hunt.

For years, this has remained a hidden issue that most people had never even heard of. But when they find out, they are horrified.

The guga hunt is an annual tradition on the remote island of Sula Sgeir in northern Scotland, where ten men travel each summer to kill young gannet chicks.

While the hunt originated centuries ago during times of food scarcity and survival, campaigners argue it now continues primarily as a cultural delicacy, with birds reportedly sold for profit on the Isle of Lewis.

Although gannets normally have legal protection, a special exemption within the Wildlife and Countryside Act allows the hunt to continue. Pownall is campaigning to remove this exemption.

Following the Edinburgh Central coverage, Protect the Wild says searches relating to the Guga hunt surged online, while its petition calling on NatureScot not to issue this year’s licence is rapidly approaching 200,000 signatures.

A separate petition asking the Scottish government to change the law reached 100,000 and the new parliament will consider it in due course.

Protect the Wild also welcomed the victory of Scottish Greens candidate Lorna Slater.

Pownall said:

This campaign was never about getting votes. It was about putting the Guga hunt into the public eye and onto the political agenda.

We’re delighted that Lorna Slater won the seat, with the Scottish Greens currently the only mainstream political party to have publicly committed to ending the Guga hunt.

We hope to work with Lorna and other MSPs on this issue in the coming months, and finally put an end to this cruel activity that has no place in a modern Scotland.

Featured image via Protect the Wild

By The Canary

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