The people of Ness are hitting back at the rising tide of claims and counter claims being made across the mainland about the impact of guga hunting on Sulasgeir.
This follows the raising of petitions on the mainland along with physical protest action taken against NatureScot buildings.
There's now a Save Our Guga Harvest Facebook Page bringing together almost 2000 supporters of the local hunt, itself a remnant of the widespread and essential tradition along all of Scotland's coasts. Historically, this reliance on cliff-nesting seabirds was vital for survival of remote island communities, like the St Kilda archipelago.
John Murdo 'Dods' Macfarlane speaks on the Save Our Guga Harvest Facebook Page about: "This nonsense that going to Sulasgeir impacts the Leaches Petrel, it does not.
"The first lie is they don’t nest in burrows on Sulasgeir as there is nowhere to burrow; they nest in the walls of the bothys that were built 200 years ago.
"There are usually two nests in the bothys and in my 42 trips, no Leaches Petrel has died because of us being on the Island. They come into the bothy when it gets dark, feed the young and of again before daylight.
"The only thing that impacts them are the Skuas that wait for them as they arrive at the Island and kill them.
"One year after a bad storm we noticed that for two nights the adult bird was missing as he must have been blown inland, but on the third night he made it home and the sound that wee bird made all night with joy stays with me to this day."
And Islanders are hitting back at outsiders views of local people. Writing on the Facebook Page, one local resident said: "People keep acting like if someone doesn't publicly condemn the Guga Hunt then they must secretly be scared to speak up. That's nonsense. A lot of islanders just don't feel the need to perform their opinions online for strangers looking for an argument.
"You've already decided the community is morally wrong, so now you're inventing reasons why locals aren't reacting the way you want them to.
"And yes, threats are wrong, obviously. But acting like a few idiots online represent the whole of Lewis or Ness folk is ridiculous as well.
" What a lot of people miss is that this isn't some industrial slaughterhouse hidden behind supermarket walls. It's an old, regulated tradition tied to food, history, and island life. You don't have to agree with it, but pretending it's uniquely evil while ignoring the destruction caused by modern food production is hypocritical.
"Millions of animals, insects, and habitats are destroyed through large-scale farming every year, including bees and wildlife killed through pesticides and harvesting machinery, yet people distance themselves from that because they don't physically see it happening. At least the people involved in the Guga Hunt are honest and direct about where food comes from.
"The irony is that many of the people shouting loudest about compassion seem to have none when it comes to understanding the culture or community they're attacking.
"That's why a lot of locals laugh at these arguments. Not because they 'have no response' but because the moral grandstanding gets tiring after a while."
A request for a licence for a 2026 hunt has recently been submitted to NatureScot – report
The hunt was cancelled back in 2022 because of the avian flu outbreak - report
The pictures show the 2019 hunters aboard FV Sheigra in Stornoway harbour before departure, and the nesting gannets on Sulasgeir (Scott Davidson).
