It registers a law reform to withdraw the Iberian predator the status of protected species north of the Duero, as the ranchers claim
The PP has asked Congress to repeal the order that since last September prohibits wolf hunting anywhere in Spain without exception. The popular, in tune with the agrarian organizations, registered a bill that, if approved, will return this controversial issue to the situation prior to the provision issued by the Ministry of Ecological Transition seven months ago.
If the popular ones achieve the support of the plenary session, the Iberian predator would continue to be a protected species and not a hunting species in the territories south of the Duero, where wild canids are a mere curiosity, and, on the contrary, in the north of Castilla y León and In the Cantabrian regions, where the bulk of the 300 packs on the peninsula live, wolves will no longer be untouchable and may be killed provided that the conditions set by each regional regulation are met. In these autonomy, what the project euphemistically baptizes as “management measures” would be allowed again
The proposal has little chance of succeeding because the certain votes in favor of the PP, Vox and, possibly, of Cs and some deputy of the mixed group do not seem sufficient to overcome the foreseeable ‘noes’ of the two partners in the Government and, at least, the nationalist left. The initiative may end up in the trash, but its presentation is of great political use. It will activate a debate in tune with the demands of the popular executives of Castilla y León and Galicia, whose shepherds and ranchers live with 90% of the wolves, and allows the conservatives to raise the flag of defense of the rural world, which the extreme right tries to dispute them openly.
Vermin or species at risk
The PP justifies the return in that the measures to prevent wolf attacks –aid for fences or mastiffs– and compensation for losses –subsidies and compensation– are insufficient to counteract the damage caused by wild canids to cows, sheep, goats or horses and, above all, to prevent the pressure on the farmers of León, Zamora, Palencia, Galicia, Asturias or Cantabria «endangering the future of their activity and the rural world». The underlying problem is that traditional shepherds and ranchers see the wolf as nothing more than a vermin, while naturalists portray a native animal at risk of extinction.
The main opposition party is convinced that the wolf packs that exist on the peninsula today number much more than the 2,000 or 2,500 individuals estimated by the last official census (2014). Proof of this, they defend, are the increasingly frequent and worrying attacks on herds, so “it should not be necessary to maintain such strict protection measures”, such as the total ban on hunting, they confess in the preamble of the law .
Ecological Transition is already working on carrying out a new updated census of the number of herds on the peninsula and what their transit areas are, and has promised autonomous communities and ranchers, in exchange for the legal shielding of the herds, to implement generous aid for the prevention of attacks and quick and sufficient indemnities to compensate for damage to herds.
#asks #Congress #reauthorize #hunting #wolves