Government silence on the future of the wolf in Spain. Despite the recent changes in the status of the predator at the European level, neither the new minister for the Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen,nor any member of his department, have attended this Thursday to the Senate to the General Commission of Autonomous Communities to address the issue. The territories affected by the current protection of the predator have been presented at the meeting, with members of the governments of Castilla y León, Galicia, Cantabria, La Rioja, Aragón, Murcia, Extremadura and Madrid present in the territorial representation chamber.
The total protection of the wolf has become a problem not only in Spain, but at a European level, with populations and damage to livestock increasing in different places. On December 3, almost 50 countries approved lowering the status of the wolf in the Berne Convention. Starting in March, the European Union will initiate the necessary legislative change in the Habitats directive to give countries greater freedom of management over the canid. However, The final decision on wolf armoring will rest with each state. And the Government of Spain until now has only said that if the data show a favorable trend for the species, “Spain would take the appropriate measures in that case.”
“Europe allows us to regain our sanity about the wolf debate,” said the spokesperson for the popular group in the Senate, Alicia García, who regretted that “the new minister did not see fit to join us today.” »The Government must reflect, attend to the ranchers and follow the recommendation of Europe«, he demanded when presenting a motion to ask the Government to begin «immediately» the procedures for the wolf populations in the north of the Duero to be removed from the list. of protected species, the Lespre. That is, communities can manage canid populations where they cause the most damage.
«If the updated census results in the need to modify the norm, Of course it will have to be modified, although currently it is allowed to extract wolves in exceptional cases,” was the response of the PSOE senator, Concepción Andreu.
However, the clamor and desperation of the autonomies that have intervened in the debate has been unanimous. The councilors of Castilla y León, Galicia, Cantabria, La Rioja have explained how the populations of the predator have increased in recent years and are causing ruin for their ranchers. For this reason, they have announced the start of a «procedure for discontinuation of the Lespre wolf”, said the environmental advisor of Castilla y León, Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones. “We have gone from 297 flocks to 333. An increase of 12%” in Spain, explained the counselor, who has called the Government’s excuses about the lack of data false. The autonomies, he said, will present a formal request with scientific data and endorsements to remove the wolf from the list of strictly protected species. “There will be nothing left but to put an end to this nonsense.”
Until now, María Ángeles Vázquez, Minister of the Environment of Galicia, has recognized, «nothing seems to help even if we update the data, because what is behind it is ideology«. For example, the Galician territory has close to a thousand wolves, with a presence in 91% of the community. The herds have gone from being 68 to being 93 in two decades. For this reason, he has demanded to recover management capacity. »It is not true that communities can act. When a species is in a maximum protection regime we can’t do absolutely anything,” said Vázquez.
In Cantabria, counselor María Jesús Susinos has explained that attempts have always been made to coexist with the species, but that the levels today are “unbearable.” With a presence already in 80% of the community, the updated data sent this week to the ministry indicate that in a decade, the territory has gone from have 12 herds to 23 herds, and that there have been more than 200 copies. “Given the damage, we cannot wait for anything other than that the ministry issues its favorable reports for the extraction of specimens,” he lamented.
In La Rioja, the Minister of the Environment Noemí Manzanos has also explained how in a few years, the presence of wolves has gone from just 12 Rioja municipalities to 50, while attacks have grown by 40% between 2005 and 2020, and the herds have gone from one in 2014 to five in 2020. “It is a nightmare for ranchers,” he summarized.
As Suárez-Quiñones has also defended, the complete shielding of the species does not work. Portugal, where the species has the complete protection regime, has just published its census and the population has decreased by 8%. «It is proven that the strict protection system does not guarantee the protection of the wolf, quite the opposite. What it does guarantee is the extinction of livestock farming and our people. In this fight against the demographic challenge, this is the worst measure that the Government of Spain has taken,” the counselor summarized.
Meanwhile, at the same time that the commission began in the Senate, the Minister for the Ecological Transition attended an event at the headquarters of her ministry to present the National Emissions Inventory to the Atmosphere, and the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, was on his way to participate in the workshop ‘The magic of glass recycling’, as it appears in their agendas.
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