The voices have been unanimous in the first National Wolf Congress, organized by Vox in the Lower House this Tuesday. While the political party has advocated creating a national wolf plan that supports the hunting control of the species throughout the country, other expert participants have explained the need to limit the expansion of the predator. “If we do nothing, the growth will be exponential,” explained José Luis López-Schummer, president of the Artemisan Foundation, who detailed that this scenario would have negative consequences not only for the Spanish countryside, but also for the species itself. . «The wolf can collapse», has said, due to the spread of diseases, due to unwanted uses of poisons due to the satiety of society or due to lack of prey.
The congress has had the participation of different Vox politicians, as well as experts from the rural world. Thus, Vox MEP Mireia Borrás has detailed that more than 13,000 attacks by wolves occur in Spain each year, causing more than 4 million euros in losses direct for farmers. Behind these figures, the MEP pointed out, there are “ruined families, towns in rural Spain that are emptying out and a livestock sector that is increasingly suffocating.” However, he pointed out, “the problem of the wolf It is not the wolf itself, but the policies radical,” he said.
For this reason, as detailed at the closing of the event by the deputy secretary of Government Action and Parliamentary Coordination, Montserrat Lluis, Vox will raise a non-law proposition in all regional parliaments that will include the commitment to a national wolf plan that includes hunting control throughout the territory, the creation of an updated national census, the development of a guide with prevention formulas against predator attacks, as well as a unified system of compensation for damage. The training also insists on the need to exclude the wolf from the List of Wild Species of the Special Protection Regime (Lespre), which is what protects the species in Spain.
Management models
Because, as López-Schummer has explained, in the question of the wolf what exists is a «fight between two management models». The one that advocates prohibiting hunting and the one that believes that hunting activity is essential for the control of the species. In the opinion of the president of the Artemisan Foundation, if the population is not controlled, the growth will be “exponential”, which will imply damage to livestock, abandonment of livestock farms, dependence on other markets for the import of livestock products. , as well as an increase in attacks on other wild species endemic to the Peninsula, such as the Hispanic goat or the roe deer, which are already being decimated in areas where the presence of the wolf has multiplied.
“It is essential that we hunt the wolf again,” he assured. Also because the expansion of the animal to areas where there is no tradition of protection will generate enormous economic and social impacts; and because it favors the appearance of wandering specimens that wreak havoc not only on livestock farms but also in towns. “All this can lead to less tolerance for the species,” he said. And while now there is “some poaching,” if the population reaches irreversible numbers, “there will be people who will take justice into their own hands,” with the effect that this has on the entire food chain.
“We advocate for the control of the species, which hunters have to do,” López-Schummer acknowledged. It is ideal not only for agricultural income, but for the subsistence of the species, which in the face of exponential growth can collapse due to the spread of diseases, unwanted uses of poisons or lack of prey. “There are already wolves with mange, and more will occur if the population continues to grow.”
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