Tag:
Articles in ‘Basque Country’
Iberian wolf ecology workshop
December 14th, 2008The Basque Iberian wolf group, Grupo Lobo de Euskadi, is organising a couple of days of talks on the 19th and 20th of December, 2008 in Vitoria. This will be the fourth of these meetings, reuniting wolf experts in Spain, and will be attended by naturalists, biologists, ecologists and farmers as well as being open to members of the public. One of the country’s foremost wolf experts, Carlos Sanz, will be among the contributors and the main focus of this year’s meeting will be given over to the national wolf conservation movements and their opinions on the various wolf management strategies of Spain’s autonomous communties. Previous meetings have included themes such as the biology of the Iberian wolf and problems relating to wolves and livestock. Contact details for applying to attend are included on the link below. It promises to be interesting!
The programme can be downloaded here on pdf.
Pheasant Island
September 5th, 2008
Surfing the Net I came across the tiny Pheasant Island, one the world’s four remaining condominiums. The island is on the River Bidassoa and is under the joint sovereignty of France and Spain, and administered by Irun (in Spain) and Hendaye (in France) for alternating periods of six months. It covers 2,000 m2 and is known as Isla de los Faisanes in Spanish, Île des Faisans, Île de l’hôpital or Île de la Conférence in French and Konpantzia in Basque.
The Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed here in 1659 putting an end the Thirty Years’ War, as shown in the painting below, and the site has been used for numerous exchanges of captives and princesses to be wed.
An interesting piece of trivia for geographical nerds like myself. The rest of you may struggle to find any interest.
Portuguese man o’war threat in Cantabrian Sea
July 20th, 2008
Photo by Scott Sonnenberg (wikipedia)
In recent weeks the presence of Portuguese man o’war (Sp. carabela portuguesa- Physalia phisalis) has been detected at various points on the coasts of Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country. Several people have been stung in beaches in Guipúzcoa (Ondarreta and Zarautz) and in Cantabria (Isla) although nobody has yet been seriously injured. Four years ago, the massive presence of the species forced the closure of several beaches in Asturias. Experts believe that the rise in the temperature of the Cantabrian Sea due to climate change has brought the Portuguese man o’war here with warmer waters. The cooler waters of Galicia have so far been free of the threat. El País. The purple Man-o-war is not a true jellyfish, but a colony of hydrozoan polyps. It can in extreme cases provoke a cardiac arrest and death in particularly sensitive persons.
Note the English and Spanish etymology comes from the creature’s air bladder, which looks similar to the triangular sails of the Portuguese ship (man-of-war) Caravela latina (two- or three-masted lateen-rigged ship caravel), of the 15th and 16th centuries. See Wikipedia
See also: Sharks, weaver fish, jellyfish and other dangerous animals in the seas around Spain
Basque shepherds claim Idiazabal cheese under threat from wolves
August 30th, 2007Shepherds in Alava, in the Basque Country have with remarkable hyperbole claimed that Idiazabal cheese, will disappear if a check is not put on wolves. Idiazabal is made with the Basque breed of latxa (lacha) sheep. Shepherds claim that the recent expansion of wolves in Alava is threatening their survival. (El Correo Digital)
A lacha sheep
Smoked with oak and beach, Idiazabal is one of my favourite Spanish cheeses, though I have many favourite Spanish cheeses.
The origin of the River Ebro’s name
August 30th, 2007The Ebro’s importance is reflected in the name of the Iberian Peninsula, which almost certainly comes from the river, first known as the Iber and Iberus and Ebro, and not the other way around. It was first used in the 6th century BC by a Greek author in reference to the Iberians, or the people who lived along the Iberus ( Ebro) river. Ultimately the word may well derive from the Basque words ibai (river) and ibar (valley), and these from ur meaning water. Linguists have noted similarities with the names of 200 other European rivers and streams (e.g. Ibar in Serbia, Ebrach and several Eberbach in Germany, Irwell in The UK) giving a tantalising clue as to a form of Basque being once spoken throughout Europe before the arrival of Indo-European tribes and languages. More on the Ebro
Spanish Caves
July 7th, 2007I’ve put together this short guide to caves in Spain. I will be adding more material soon. Below la Torca del Carlista in the Basque Country, the largest cavern in Europe. Only currently accessible to expert cavers.
Photo of the Torca del Carlista
Basque whaling tradition
June 5th, 2007This is a bit from “The Basque History of the World” by Mark Kurlansky, an excellent if somewhat nationalistic portrait of that remarkable corner of the Iberian Peninsula. There’s a big section on whaling, from which I leave you all:
 
Seal of the Basque town of Biarritz, 1351, with whaling scene and two-flued harpoon. (http://www.whalecraft.net/History.html)
An important feature of the Basque whale was that, like the sperm whale, but unlike many whale species, it floated when dead. The whale’s back shone obsidian black in the water, though the belly was a brilliant white. Averaging about fifty to sixty feet in length, a quarter of which was the huge head, a single animal could weigh more than sixty tons. Such a whale would yield thirty tons of blubber, which could be cooked down to an oil valued for centuries as fuel. Most coastal Basque communities established facilities along their beaches for cooking down whale blubber. As with most things Basque, it is not certain when this oil trade began, but in 670, at the end of the age of the Visigoths, there was a documented sale in northern France by Basques from Labourd of forty pots of whale oil……
……The first commercial whale hunters were the seventh- and eighth-century Basques, who found an eager market for this meat in Europe. Whale meat became a staple of the European diet partly because the Catholic Church forbade the eating of “redblooded” meat on holy days-about half the days on the calendar including every Friday-arguing that it was “hot,” associated with sex, which was also forbidden on holy days. But meat that came from animals-or parts of animals-that were submerged in water, including whale, fish, and the tail of the beaver, was deemed “cold” and therefore permitted. So with the exception of beaver tails and the occasional seal or porpoise, whale was the one allowable red meat. The Basques became the great providers of this holy red meat. They sold the leaner meat fresh or preserved in salt. Fattier parts were cured like bacon. In Paris, where these cuts were a Lenten specialty, they were known as craspois. Tongues, fresh or salted, were regarded as a particular delicacy and served with peas. Being the choicest part, the only good part, according to some medieval writers, whale tongues were often demanded by local church or government officials as tribute. The port of Bayonne jealously guarded its monopoly on the tongue trade.
Replica of a txalupa, the original Basque whaling boat (http://www.pasaiabai.com/cultura/2006/mayo/1-mayo-ontziola.htm)
In the seventh century, the Basques, no longer content to await for ailing whales to beach themselves, built stone whalespotting towers along the coast from Bilbao to Bayonne, manning them between October and March. One still remains on a mountaintop near San Sebastian and another in Guethary in Labourd. The whale’s undoing was the fact that it is a lunged mammal and must rise to the surface to breathe. When it does, a tall column of vapor is released. Spotting the spout of an approaching whale off the coastline, the lookout in the tower would let out a prolonged yell. His shouts were actually coded signals that told whalers the exact type of whale sighted, and whether it was a single whale or in a group. Five oarsmen, a captain, and a harpooner would then row out in a lightweight vessel.
The oarsmen would row as silently as possible, muffling the oars in their locks and even the oar blades in the water with oiled cloth. Then, having sneaked up on the unsuspecting giant foundering along the coast, they would strike suddenly with wooden-handled spears and harpoons. The oarsmen had to row, close enough to the whale for the harpooner to plant the har•
goon deeply into the body just below the head. Harpooning became the trade of the largest, strongest men. After harpooning the whale, the oarsmen had to row furiously in reverse, turning a fast circle, for an enraged whale could kill a dozen men with a flick of its huge tail. Or, instead of turning on its attackers, the whale might try to dive to the safety of great depths, dragging men and boats with it. The whale would dive with harpoon, line, and buoys until, out of breath, it had to furiously resurface, only to be harpooned again. The process was repeated numerous times until the whale spouted blood and died or the whalers capsized and drowned. Sometimes the boat and fishermen would just sink under the weight of the wet ropes.
By the late thirteenth century, whales marked the town seals of Bermeo and Fuenterrabia. Among the other towns that included whales in their town seals were Biarritz, Hendaye, Guetaria, Motrico, and Lequeitio. Not only did these towns keep the whale on their seals, but, from the use of whaling launches, they developed an early and enduring passion for rowing regattas.
The rainfall records for Spain keep tumbling. According to the latest provisional figures 
I’ve just come across 
Three Iberian lynxes of the captive breeding programme have died in recent weeks from a renal disease. Lynxes in the wild are thought not to suffer from this disease.