I have signed the Stop the Guga Hunt. Now I am not someone who thinks that nature conservation can be done without reference to human realities and needs (I think doing so is at best naive and at worst nefarious and malevolent), nor someone who considers culture unimportant. But I do believe ethics is always rooted in time, and hence never static.

The Guga Hunt is a hangover from past times that simply cannot be justified in present day of environmental collapse; the short text of the aforementioned petition is spot on. The fact that this practice is protected in Scots Law is a tragedy, the law needs to change.

To put it differently if the good folk of Lewis want to continue this practice on the basis that it has been a part of their ‘way of life’ since the 15th century, it would be I think appropriate to offset this by actually going back to 15th century Island living that necessitated it: get rid of the iPhones, the government paid for super fast fibre broadband, the EU paid for roads, the cars, the diesel guzzling boats, the coast guard rescue helicopters, the NHS. And abolish the Crofters’ Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886; then I’d say there would be a case to be made for the guga hunt.

Culture, that is an established set of habitual practices and shared values, must, necessarily, always be subject to review, the world is not a diorama. My observation over the years has been that the ‘way of life’ argument is invariably rolled out when no compelling rationalisation exists; it is a hallmark of ethical decay.

The Stop the Guga Hunt petition can be found on the Scottish Parliament website.