apparently growing between 3% and 5% a year, although this growth is concentrated in just a few colonies. Although northern gannet populations are now stable, their numbers were once greatly reduced due to loss of habitat, removal of eggs and killing of adults for their meat and feathers. In 1939, there were 22 colonies and some 83,000 nests, which means that the populations have increased fourfold since that time. In 1992, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimated the bird's population to be some 526,000. After taking into account an estimate produced for BirdLife International in 2004 of the European population, the IUCN revised its global population to between 950,000 and 1,200,000 individuals. The IUCN lists northern gannets as a species of least concern, as they are widely distributed and as there is a large population that appears to be growing due to high breeding success, with 75% of eggs producing fledged young. In culture In Homer's Odyssey, the sea goddess Leucothea ( "white goddess"), appears "in the likeness of a Gannet" and tells the shipwrecked Odysseus to discard his cloak and raft, instead offering him her veil to wind round himself which will save his life and enable him to reach land. Another early reference to the gannet is in the 7th-century Old English epic poem The Seafarer. An old myth from Mykines in the Faroe Islands tells of the giant Tórur seeking mercy following defeat at the hands of Óli, the islanders' head man and magician. In return, he gave them whales, driftwood logs and a bird unique to the archipelago, on condition that the inhabitants did not laugh at his gifts. Over time, the islanders forgot their promise, and lost the whales and logs, but fearful of losing a valuable food source, they never mocked the gannets that Tórur had given them. Northern gannets have long been eaten for food. Birds, mainly the young, were taken from Bass Rock for at least 350 years until 1885, when the annual cull of about 1,500 individuals finally ceased, and Shetland gannets were sold as "Highland goose" in London restaurants during World War II. Views of the palatability of this bird are mixed, but as well as being a food for the poor it also regularly featured in Scottish royal banquets. In Scotland gannets were traditionally salted to preserve them until they got to market, this technique being