The wolf is on everyone’s lips in the rural and mountainous areas of the Iberian Peninsula. Defenders and detractors continue to state their positions for and against this endangered animal.some to seek the survival of this unique species and others because of attacks on livestock and so that they can be hunted again.
Beyond these opposing positions, it seems that the Iberian wolf will maintain its state protection until 2031. This, at least, if we take into account what the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Moránwhich indicated that the strategy to be followed will be adapted in 2025 to the six-yearly report on the evolution of the situation of the species, whose previous report (2019), with the data provided by the autonomous communities, gave an “unfavorable” opinion. ” result on its situation and culminated with its incorporation into the List of wild species under special protection regime (Lespre).
At the same time, Hugo Morán highlighted the commitment made in 2022 by the Executive, “for the first time”, to support the livestock sector and the autonomous communities through an aid plan “both for preventive measures and for the payment of compensation for damages. A decision that will partly affect Castilla-La Mancha, especially the province of Guadalajara, and which, as expected, has been harshly felt in the livestock sector. In fact, this summer Group of ranchers from the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara He denounced the “laziness” of the Administration in the face of the continuous attacks by wolves and vultures in this region.
In an attempt to alleviate this situation, the Castilian-Manchego government approved aid at the end of last year to mitigate the damage caused by attacks by Iberian wolves on domestic livestock by 2024. The aim of these aids is to: aid, as the Council highlighted in a resolution published on 26 December in the Official Gazette of Castilla-La Mancha (DOCM).is the reconciliation of the presence of the Iberian wolf with the region’s livestock farming practices, particularly with extensive livestock farming. The budget allocated to this is 110,000 euros for the 2024 and 2025 rents.
The novelty of the regulations for this year is that, given the increase in the number of attacks recorded in the border regions of Castilla-La Mancha and given the great mobility characteristic of the ecology of this cross-border species beyond its camping area, the coverage of possible attacks from the province of Guadalajara has been extended to the entire autonomous community.
In addition, On 16 August, the Vice-Ministry of Common Agrarian Policy and Agro-Environmental Policy announced, within the framework of the early treatment procedure, new aid specific to the province of Guadalajara, according to a resolution published in the DOCM. The beneficiaries, in this case, will be the owners of a farm or a group of owners, city halls, entities with a territorial scope lower than the municipality, associations of municipalities, private companies and individuals carrying out an economic activity. as well as non-profit associations and institutions.
The aid is co-financed in the following proportion: the co-financing of the EAFRD will be 75% of the aid granted, while the remaining 25% will be co-financed at 7.5% by the General State Administration and 17.5% by the Autonomous Community of Castile-La Mancha. The intensity of the aid corresponding to the actions financed will be 100% of the eligible costs. with a maximum of 4,000 euros per farm and per year as a whole.
As sources from the Ministry of Sustainable Development explain to ABC, palliative measures are financed by direct compensation for the damage caused by the species in extensive livestock. And on the other hand, within the framework of preventive measures, in addition to prevention methods, direct investments are made in training actions, protection measures, livestock control systems, etc.
Regarding the number of attacks produced by the species, the same sources indicate that they present oscillations over the years, probably due to the oscillation of the populations themselves and to the greater or lesser availability of food for wildlife and game for climatological or other reasons. The nature was generally linked to hunting itself and to the possibility of hunting and cattle carcasses remaining in dumps and in the mountains.
Number of attacks
According to data from Department of Sustainable Developmentin the period 2018/2023, wolf attacks do not exceed a hundred in any case, remaining very close in the years 2018 and 2020 and, as shown by the data of very small episodes in the years 2022 and 2023, with a number of episodes close to half a hundred, half of the previous ones.
In Castilla-La Mancha, since 1998, the Iberian wolf has been listed as “in danger of extinction”, in accordance with the regional regulations for the conservation of nature (Decree 33/1998 that regulates the Catalogue of Threatened Species) as a consequence of their extinction throughout the regional territory. Therefore, The last wolf detected in the Montes de Toledo dates back to 1985 and in the Sierra Morena it disappeared at the beginning of the current century..
On the other hand, with the expansion of the wolf towards the central system from the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, the wolf has been present in the northwest of the province of Guadalajara since the beginning of the 2000s. The technicians of the Office assure that. “The demographic dynamics in this area are marked by processes of colonization-extinction, especially for the period 2001 to 2014. “From this last date – they add – a family group begins to be constituted, although the loss of individuals due to diseases (distemper, scabies) and other anthropogenic causes is considered recurrent.”
The size of the group detected in the wolf populations of the province of Guadalajara would be around 3-4 individuals. observed at the end of winter (March-April), according to data provided by the department, these groups forming a breeding pair and one or two individuals born in previous years. Of course, they emphasize that the survival rate of puppies that reach the age of one year is estimated to be low.
Currently, the number of breeding groups is four, whose presence is concentrated on the Sierra Norte Natural Park of Guadalajarabut as experts indicate, “there is no evidence of its presence in any other regional territory, since the possible temporary presence of a possible wolf in dispersion in the province of Ciudad Real has not been perfectly identified and is currently not “There is no evidence of its existence.”
