A licence for the annual guga hunt on a remote island has been refused by a Scottish Government agency. Young gannets – guga – are taken from open cliffs using a pole and noose, before being gutted, salted and preserved in brine. At the conclusion of the meeting on Monday, NatureScot’s chairman Colin Galbraith thanked officials for dealing with the licence application “professionally, impartially and with integrity”. The agency said later: “We received a licence application from the Men of Ness for a 2026 guga hunt. “We have used the latest information available and commissioned an updated population model to help predict the effect of the guga hunt on the gannet population.