Iberian wolf videos
I’ve put together this collection of videos from Google Video and YouTube of documentaries and news items on wolves in Spain. there also a link to a radio programme on wolves from Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. Enjoy.
Noticias en ‘Wolves’
May 12th, 2008Electric fences against wolf attacks
Electric fences stop 97% of attacks by wolves on livestock according to this article from EFE. In an experiment in 30 sheep farms in Spain, only three attacks occurred with the death of just one sheep during a year. Mastiffs are effective, though less so, with a 69% reduction in livestock injuries and deaths. The results were presented at the meeting Conviviendo con el lobo: Prevención de daños en Europa Meridional held in Segovia this February.
Wolf photos
Wil Luiif sent me these great photos wolves in the Sierra de la Culebra he took this October.
Wil organises English-language trips to watch wolves in Zamora, possibly in the future in collaboration with iberianature. More here at Aragonnatuur or send him an email. Don’t be put off by the Dutch, his English is better than mine. More on Iberian wolves
Illegal wolf hunting
Illegal wolf hunting in Castilla-León is responsible for some 300 wolf deaths a year, making it practically impossible for the animal to expand. (Público)
Three wolves killed illegally in Valladolid
Three wolves killed in Valladolid in an illegal hunt (20 minutos). Last year 122 wolves were legally hunted in Castilla y León in the legal hunting season between the end of September and early February. South of the Duero, wolf hunting is currently banned, but the EU has recently given its approval to change the law.
EU to accept wolf hunting
The EU is to accept the new wolf management plan of Castilla-Leon when it is approved in January 2007 which will allow wolves to hunted south of the River Duero to protect livestock, breaking a 20-year protection of the species in this area.
Two wolves killed illegally in Valladolid in 2006. (El Pais) The police seem to have enjoyed their display.
According to wolf expert Juan Carlos Blanco, wolves expanded significantly in the 1990s but this expansion, reaching the border of the region of Madrid, has halted. In the last decade the density of wolves in the area of distribution has probably increased. “This is a typical behaviour: first a big territorial expansion and then a brake to this”.
Some 200 wolves are hunted legally every year in Spain, and many more illegally, not just in Castilla-Leon but also in Asturias where 25 wolves were killed between January 2006 and March 2007, by officials after reports of sheep deaths. In contrast, in the Sierra de la Culebra, rich hunters pay up to 18,000 euros to kill a wolf.
Ecologistas en Acción is against the removal of protection. “…there is no justification. Five years ago the Spanish parliament voted to include the wolf in the National Catalogue of threatened species and not only has this not been done, but they now want to extend its hunting. Legal hunting does not replace poaching and the use of poison, it complements it”.
Wolf attacks on livestock have increased but this may not be only be due to its breeding success. The absence of carrion after the EU mad-cow ban on leaving dead livestock in the countryside has had a huge affect on wildlife on Spain and has in all surety driven wolves to attack sheep more frequently. The Junta de Castilla y Leon claim the region’s 1500 wolves kill 2,200 sheep and 220 cows a year. They claim the plan guarantees the conservation of the wolf and reduces its negative effects. The actual contents of the plan are still unclear, but sources talk of some 50 wolves a year.
News briefs 2
Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucia are to have a single conservation programme for the lynx. (Terra). It seems utterly remarkable to me that they didn’t do this years ago. And still no more confirmation of the lynx in Castilla-La Mancha. What a strange story this is. The more and more people I talk to the more suspicious I become, but let us wait and see. Follow the forum thread for more on this or read the latest thoughts on the foro-linceiberico.
The population of wolves in Andalucia has “stabilized” at some 50 individuals in 6-9 groups, spread across the Sierra Morena (Sierra de Despeñaperros, Parque Natural Sierra de Andújar, Parque de Sierra Cardeña y Montoro and Parque Natural de Hornachuelos). The Andalusian government hope that there will be 200-300 wolves in the region with the next 15 years, which would provide a guarantee for the animal’s survival. Most of the wolves live in huge hunting estates with a very low human population. Wolves have been protected in Andalucia since 1986. (ABC)
Carlos Sanz and wolves
A new TVE documentary on wolves in Spain and on the work of Carlos Sanz, one of principal experts and defenders of wolves in Spain. Click here (link corrected). Thanks to Lisa on the forum for finding this.
Iberian wolf photos
Some great wolf photos by Andoni Canela from this Sunday’s La Vanguardia’s magazine as part of an article on wolves in Spain. This year in Villardeciervos (Zamora)three wolves were auctioned for hunting in the Sierra de la Culebra, but this is coming increasingly into question with the rise of wolf watching tourism in the area. Come wolf watching with Iberianature from 11-16th October 2007.
Basque shepherds claim Idiazabal cheese under threat from wolves
Shepherds 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.
Wolf tales
Lucy posted this on the forum
“The San Emiliano hostel I stayed in this summer had an interesting book issued by the Diario de Leon: “El Siglo de Leon – todos sus pueblos y sus gentes. Vol. 1” – in fact it’s one of those series of supplements which you can have bound into a book if you collect them all…. The book in general was fascinating - stuffed with old photographs, including some heartbreaking ones of slain bears…..This story concerns an inhabitant of the village Lumajo, 1,360 metres high, in the Somiedo area, in 1860. ”
Here is my quick translation
“Pedro del Potro Riesco was a young man who entered the Army at an early age and by the age of 23 was already a second lieutenant. Returning on leave one day in December, he left his cart in Villaseca and had to walk the last steep 5km to his home. Not long after setting out he realised that there were two wolves following him and when he stopped, they would do the same. He hurried on, but they drew closer and closer, and as he approached the village he he could their tails brush between their legs. Then, just in time, the dogs belonging to Sabugo (a well known lawyer whose family lived in the area) caught the scent of the beasts and set off in pursuit. The young man was able to reach his home, but he was so shocked and scared that he was struck dumb for eight long days. When he finally recovered his speech the following week, he asked his mother for an omelette with eight eggs.
‘It is to give to Sabugo the lawyer’s dogs, for they saved my life.’
For wolf fright, see also Dave mother-in-law’s story from el Bierzo also in León.
Wolves in Somiedo
Bears and wolves threatened by EU carrion ban
As previously reported on Iberianature, bears, wolves and other wildlife in Spain are seriously threatened by the EU dead livestock ban arising from the BSE outbreak. 8-10 bear cubs are estimated to have died in 2006 because of the ban. Just in Asturias, 210,300 kg of dead meat are now removed every year which before was an essential food source for many animals, despite the fact that not a single case of BSE has been detected in the region. (El Mundo). The issue is currently being taken up by Spanish MEPS in the EU (Fapas)
Bear eating carrion in Asturias (FAPAS) See also Good news for carrion birds + spainbearnews
Is this a wolf?
I recently received this mail which provoked the following debate on the forum here.
I was interested to read your article on http://www.iberianature.com/material/wolf.html.
“On the 4th of July at about 10 am I was leading a group of 7 trekkers from the UK down a mountain path in the Picos de Europa. We went from Refugio J D Ubeda to Sortes (I think this is just inside Austurias). At about 1000m altitude on a bend in the path we stopped for a break and quickly noted all the goats on the nearby hillside were all looking at another single animal higher up on the slope.
Getting my monocular focused it clearly was a large carnivore (bigger than a adult goat) which appeared to be trying to stalk the goats and some nearby sheep. There were no other humans visible in the area. It’s muscles in the shoulders were visible as it walked like a big cat. My immediate thought was that it looked like a Puma but the distance and background made the shape of its head difficult to see. It was being harassed by a couple of diving choughs or ravens, the spooked goats kept moving away from it, so in the end it just sat up on it’s haunches and looked at us.
Could this have been a Wolf ?
I attach some of my long range grainy photos that could be anything from a Big Foot to a Martian but I suspect it was a Wolf.
My apologies if you get lots of stupid questions like this all the
time but this ‘Beast of the Picos’ is bugging us.
Yours,
IO1 Steve Houghton
Catalan wolves
Today’s Avui notes there are now four different wolves present on the Cadi area of the Pre-Pyrenees. All are male, which is typical of an expaning population. There have been 11 recorded attacks on livestock. Since the detection of the first male in 2004, 13 trained mastiff dogs have given to local shepherds. More here from Avui (Catalan).
As previously reported on iberianature these wolves are genetically Italian in origin, forming part of an expansion over a number generations out from the Apennines, with the first wolf appearing in Catalonia in 2004. The last Catalan wolf was shot in Terra Alta in the south of the Principality in 1935, though the animal is thought to have disappeared from the Sierra de Cadà more than 100 years ago.
See also forum thread on this news
 http://www.iberianatureforum.com/index.php?topic=455.msg3230;boardseen#new</p>
wolf watching in the Sierra de la Culebra
Another fascinating trip to the Sierra de la Culebra, this time with students from Barcelona and Girona universities. A fun crowd. One living wolf, plus, unfortunately, this. Read here. http://www.iberianature.com/material/Spain_wolf/Sierra_de_la_Culebra_trip.htm
Las Montañas del Lobo
27/01/07Las Montañas del Lobo: Another wolf documentary from Spanish TV. This one looks at outcast wolves - subordiante animals which are expelled from the group. It tells the tale of a pair, one old and one young, which strike out alone after being denied food. Stunning photography. 52 minutes. Watch. See also Wolves in Spain. 
Conflicts with wolves in Spain
12/12/2006 Conflicts with wolves in Spain (press note). 23 minutes. The Sierra de la Culebra is a model to follow. Click on play. Another Spain Wolf documentary here
[googlevideo]7237590041613235115[/googlevideo]
Trip to Sierra de la Culebra
12/12/2006. Another great trip to the Sierra de la Culebra, that immense, empty landscape on the north-east frontier with Portugal, organised by Galanthus. Iberian newt tadpoles. salamanders, some 30 red deer, 2 foxes, and 5 black vultures flying over the place we were staying. On the way back we stopped off at Vilafafila for ten minutes and I saw my first long tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis), a rarity at that site, and a throng of fifteen great bustards, the heaviest flying bird in the world. Oh and we also watched a big male wolf moving slowly through the scrub, as ravens picked at an animal it had presumably killed, and a fox struggled to drag off a piece of the carcass. More on this and some great photos also not by me soon.
 Photo by Jordi Dalmau Caner
Wolves in 18th century Spain
10/10/2006 I came across these accounts of dogs and wolves in A Journey Through Spain in the Years 1786 and 1787 by Joseph Townsend. I assume the tiger is a lynx.
Piedrafita [in Jaca], a little village containing forty six houses is fed by a little valley and surrounded on every side by mountains. The shepherd dogs are large, well qualified to engage the wolves, which are here in great abundance. They wear a spiked collar to protect the neck, and to prevent the wolf from fixing on that mortal part. …..[Pyrenees] On the mountains I am told, are not only wolves, but bears and a species of the tiger; all of which, in the winter are exceedingly ferocious. From the dread of these, the shepherds constantly drive their flocks of sheep and goats into the villages by night, and when they are feeding on the mountains they are attended by strong dogs with spiked collars…. [Pyrenees] All the dogs in the little villages through which we pass have spiked collars . These are absolutely needful because wolves abound in these regions. In winter they become ravenous and bold, but in the summer they commit frequent ravages among the flocks by night if either the shepherd or the flock are sleeping soundly. [Somiedo]
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And here is one of the spiked collars, a carlanca. More here. (Fapas)
Book on wolves in Andalucia
04/10/2006 I was recently asked by VÃctor Gutiérrez Alba to review his book “El Lobo Ibérico en Andaluciaâ€. This is a comprehensive account of the wolf in Andalusia covering its history, mythology and relations with man, with fascinating chapters such as the “The Wolf as a Transforming Element of the Landscapeâ€, “War and Wolvesâ€, Wolves and Andalusian witchcraft” Wolves and Transhumance”. The book is very well researched and brimming with historical anecdotes. It begins with a perhaps overly exhaustive review of the decline extinction of wolves in Andalusia . For the time being here’s an extract from the start of the book from one Enrique IV Alonso de Palencia who writes in the 1570s of the presence of two wolves in the centre of Seville, at a time when wolves roamed throughout the region:
“….once the sun had risen, two wolves came into Seville and ran across the city. One of them, frightened by the shouts from the people, entered the Church of Santa Catalina, ran up to the high altar and stained the priest’s chasuble with its saliva , before fleeing from the people in pursuit and those attending mass. It doubled back before being slain by arrows in the outskirts by the Church of San Pedro . Its head was cut off and taken to the Duke. The other wolf fled towards the Templo de St Lucia and left the city unharmed.†An excellent read and I’ll be translating more short extracts over the coming months.. You can order a copy here from Oryx. Snip at 30 euros. (I’m not on any commission by the way).
