The wolf appears to have firmly returned to Catalonia after an absence of more than 70 years. In the last few years a dozen  or so animals have been gradually arriving from France (see below) and settled in the Pyrenees, and have even reached as far south as the Vallés Oriental. The news  was released in the latest issue of the Spanish wildlife journal Quercus which reports the presence of up to 13 different individuals, some identified only once and others that appear and disappear depending on the  year.  However, so far all animals have been males, except for a female detected in 2008. This  is a common pattern, as young males tend to be the first to disperse, which explains in part why so far there is no evidence of breeding in Catalonia.The wolves have been detected in across an area of some 1,400 square kilometers in the Cadi mountains and other surrounding mountain ranges in Alt Urgell, Cerdanya, Alt Solsonès, and Berguedà. Unsurprisingly, the animal’s return has revived the traditional conflict with farmers and in the early years there was an average annual loss of about 80 head of livestock, although in some years more than 200 were lost. These attacks on livestock, for which farmers are compensated, have declined dramatically following various protective measures: just 3 sheep were lost in 2009 and 10 in 2010. ABC + Photo from here

How long before they reach Barcelona’s Collserola I wonder.

I wrote this last year

Tests have shown that this new influx of wolves in Catalonia is genetically Italian in origin, forming part of an expansion over a number generations out from the Apennines. The Apennine population began to expand in several directions from the early 1990’s. It moved north into the Italian and Swiss Alps; north-east into the French Alps and Lyon, and east towards the Pyrenees, reaching the Maritime Alps near Nice by 1996, Saboya by 1998. An individual was detected between Areja and French Cerdenya by August 1998 in the Madres Massif, just to the north of Canigó, and finally by 2004 into the Cadí range. The last Catalan wolf was shot in Horta de Sant Joan, in Tarragona in 1929, though the animal is thought to have disappeared from the Sierra de Cadí more than 100 years ago

I’ve just come across the remarkable true story of Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, a boy who spent 12 years as a boy living with wolves in the Sierra de Cardeña in the Sierra Morena. His story is now being told in a new film entitled Entre lobos to be released in October.

Feralchildren.com have written this description of him:

Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja was born on the 7 May 1946, and remembers being taken away at the age of 7 by a man on a reddish horse. He believes he was sold or hired to tend goats, a not unusual arrangement for children of that age. It also wasn’t unusual for goatherds to live up on the mountains with their animals and only visit human habitation every few years.

Marcos Pantoja left on his own

Marcos worked with an old goatherd for possibly several months before the man died, but in that time he’d learnt to fend for himself in the mountains, looking after the herd of goats and ensuring they bred successfully. He made friends with wolves, and lived variously in a cave, an old hut, and a hut that he built himself.

I don’t have time to translate this at the moment but this description in El País of how he befriended the wolves is truly remarkable:

• Vivir doce años entre lobos, El País

–Yo estaba preparado con el cuchillo. La carne que yo no quería se la llevaba a los lobillos. Los padres no me dejaban, pero como veían que yo les llevaba de comer, cogieron confianza. Yo olía como ellos. Cuando yo quería que vinieran, cuando me veía que no tenía salida, empezaba a aullar. Venían varios lobos y, como se daban cuenta de que estaba perdido, se tiraban a mí dando saltos y me cogían los brazos con la boca hasta que yo reía. Empezaban a jugar. Luego me señalaban el camino hasta la cueva de ellos y, desde allí, yo ya sabía irme. Me divertía yo solo con los animales.

Y se entendía con ellos. Con sus mismos sonidos. En cuanto uno menos se lo espera, Marcos, hoy, coge una hoja del suelo y se la pone en la boca. Pij, pij, pij… El ruido que hace el águila. Y también imita el de la perdiz macho. Y el de la perdiz hembra. Marcos era uno más en la naturaleza. “Dormía con la zorra. La zorra era la primera que se metía debajo de mis piernas cuando había tormenta o llovía”. También vivió un tiempo con una camada de ratones, a los que daba leche de cabra. Y siempre planeaba por allí algún águila, a la que le troceaba los conejos o perdices que atrapaba. “Ponía la presa en un plato de aquellos de corcho y más contentos… Acariciaba a las águilas, las besaba, y se iban más contentas…”. Janer, el antropólogo, analiza estos pasajes: “Marcos no inventa, pero cubre con la imaginación su necesidad de saberse querido por alguien”.

The first female wolf in 80 years has been detected in Catalonia in the Sierra de Cadí. The first wolf in the Cadi was detected in 2004. More from Crónica Verde.

Tests have shown that this new influx of wolves in Catalonia is genetically Italian in origin, forming part of an expansion over a number generations out from the Apennines. The Apennine population began to expand in several directions from the early 1990′s. It moved north into the Italian and Swiss Alps; north-east into the French Alps and Lyon, and east towards the Pyrenees, reaching the Maritime Alps near Nice by 1996, Saboya by 1998. An individual was detected between Areja and French Cerdenya by August 1998 in the Madres Massif, just to the north of Canigó, and finally by 2004 into the Cadí range. The last Catalan wolf was shot in Horta de Sant Joan, in Tarragona in 1929, though the animal is thought to have disappeared from the Sierra de Cadí more than 100 years ago. More on wolves in Spain

There is a curious historical coincidence with Catalan wolves and Pablo Picasso. Horta de Sant Joan (where the last wolf was shot) was were Picasso is often considered to have developed cubism for the first time and he famously declared, “All I know is thanks to Horta de Sant Joan“. The great artist also spent some time in Gósol, the centre of the Cadí (where the new wolves have arrived), from the spring of 1906 to mid-August of that same year, where his works have been called his Gósol period. There are small Picasso museums in both villages which quite reasonably take advantage of his illustrious stays to promote themselves.

This remarkable sculpture of a wolf head is from Jaén in the early 4th BCE. The ears pinned back and the wrinkled muzzle suggest a threatening posture. It forms part of the so-called Heroic Sanctuary of El Pajarillo (Huelma, Jaén). It tells the story of a hero who confronted a wolf in the presence of two mythological beings. The hero frees a youth from the wild animal. On show at the Museum of Jaén.

This forum post in Spanish discusses the role of wolves in ancient Iberian society.

These methods were justified by the needs of the times, but unfortunately wolves, today without justification, are still being illegally killed in their hundreds in Spain. This week for instance La Crónica Verde reports here on two wolves found snared in Anta de Rioconejos, Zamora. Their yelping alerted local people to their rescue.

A new study by Sergi Garcia (who I do wildlife trips with) and Antonio Navarro has found that wolf tourism has become far more economic than wolf hunting in the Sierra de la Culebra. The study, presented at the Sociedad Española para la Conservación y el Estudio de los Mamíferos, simply adds up the earnings from both sectors . Earnings from wolf tourism (hotels, restaurants, varous purchases), brings in a remarkable 500,000 euros a year compared to 150.000 euros for all forms of hunting (including deer). ” Rural lodgings have increased from just 2 in 2002 to 15 in 2009. However, the study warns against the massification of tourism in the area and criticises the new wolf visitor’s centre to be opened this year in Sanabria.

More here (Estimación del impacto económico del turismo lobero en la Sierra de la Culebra).

News and photo from La Crónica Verde

A Spanish researcher has shown that wolves in the Macizo Central Orensano, Galicia prefer roe deer, deer and wild boar, rather than sheep, goats, cows and horses. The researcher, who identified the food type of wolves through their faeces, found “in 87.1% of cases the carcasses of wild hoofed animals appeared, while domestic animals were only found in 11.3%. Lower amounts of remains of carnivorous animals, such as badgers, dogs, cats and rabbits were also found”.

The study, recently published in Wildlife Biology, shows that roe deer are the main prey, and were eaten all seasons of the year though particularly during the summer (52%) and spring (26.2%). 62.8% of prey were roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), 12.6% deer (Cervus elaphus) and 10% wild boar (Sus scrofa). The consumption of domestic sheep and goats only represented 7.7% and 2.9%, respectively.

The fact that livestock remains are present in excrement samples of wolves is explained by their scavenging habits in the area. No attacks on livestock were reported during the study. One of the most important points in the study that the consumption of wild and domestic animals does not depend on their availability. Wolves preferred roe deer, deer and wild boar ahead of livestock, “in spite of the fact that both food types can be found in large quantities”, Barja adds.

“In areas with a low density and diversity of wild hoofed animals where wolves feed on domestic animals, an increase in the number of wild prey, livestock vigilance and limited access to carcasses could force wolves to specialise in the consumption of wild prey and transmit this behaviour to their offspring. Without doubt, this would help to minimise conflict between humans and wolves, and would support the conservation of canidae”, the researcher concludes.

Wildife Biology from Eureka Alert

Photo by Wil Luiif who organises trips to watch wolves in Spain. More here at Aragonnatuur

Spanish photographer Jose Luis Rodriguez has won the prestigious 2009 Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year award for his picture of an Iberian wolf leaping a fence as it pursues its prey. Rodriguez says that he had planned for years, and even sketched out on a piece of paper. He used a custom-built infrared trap to snap the wolf as it leapt into the air. He told the BBC, “I wanted to capture a photo in which you would see a wolf in an act of hunting – or predation – but without blood,” He went onto say that he hoped his picture, “showing the wolf’s great agility and strength”, will become an image that can be used to show just how beautiful the Iberian wolf is and how the Spanish can be proud to have such an emblematic animal. More from the BBC

Visit britainnnature

The Shark Alliance has denounced the overfishing of sharks for their fins by Spanish ships. 60,000 tons were docked in Spanish ports last year.
“A new TNS Demoscopia poll, commissioned by the Shark Alliance, has revealed that people in Spain are unwittingly eating shark meat. Although 96% of those polled said that they did not eat shark, 76.4% were not aware that “cazón” and “marrajo” are sharks and nearly 33% said that they consumed these products.  The results were released in conjunction with a new report from SUBMON, titled Spain: A driving force in shark fishing around the world, that documents serious fishery problems including mislabelling sharks at market.”

Read Spanish unwittingly eat shark (Shark Alliance)

For more than a decade, Spain has been one of the top five world powers with respect to the fishing and marketing of sharks.  Spain’s fishing fleets, employing various gears,  span the globe, taking sharks as targeted and incidental catch.  Approximately 50% of the EU catch of “sharks” (all cartilaginous fishes: sharks, rays and chimaeras) is taken by Spain.

Five wolf cubs
The mother wolf has five cubs
black and white behind a brush
She had five and she raised five
and she gave all five her breast to feed

To be sung to babies to distract them. Swivel your five fingers, the five wolf cubs, in front of the baby.

Spanish TV’s documentary flagship Informe Semanal showed this documentary last week about the illegal shooting of wolves in Castilla-León where every year as many as 500-600 wolves are killed by hunters, 90′% of which are shot illegally.

The new wolf hunting management plan in Castilla y León is alarming Spanish conservationists. The price for shooting a wolf in Castilla y León is set at 3000 euros. Meanwhile, many more are killied illegally, some of which because of an increasing interest among illegal hunting rings under the tacit protection of the regional government. In most of Castilla-León, wolves enjoy scant support as they are responsible for some 300,000 euros in sheep deaths. This has become much worse with the removal of carrion because of the BSE crisis. Yet, as I have mentioned here many times before the opportunities of wolf tourism as shown in the Sierra de la Culebra, offers a different way forward.

Ripped by forestman
Casa Grande de Xanceda the eco-yoghurt farm

The new wolf hunting management plan in Castilla y León is alarming Spanish conservationists. The price for shooting a wolf in Castilla y León is set at 3000 euros, though many more are also killied illegally, some of which because of an increasing interest among illegal hunting rings under the tacit protection of the regional government. If you can get Spanish television, Informe Semanal is to show a report on the issue on 17th January.

• Fapas
• EU to accept wolf hunting (IbNat) “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.”

Above photo: Two wolves killed illegally in Valladolid in 2006. (El Pais). The agents seems to have taken pleasure in displaying theire capture.

The programme can be downloaded here on pdf.

Thankfully the Catalan authorities are seeing sense in this matter and are refusing to listen to the yuppie owners of Vall d’Aran. As Simon on the forum points out the Catalan Minsitry of the Environment should no more take into account the opinions of hotel owners than these should listen to the former’s advice on how to make beds. For me, the underlying problem is the ridiculous amount of local automony and respect afforded to a small area, just because they happen to speak a different language. The Aranese have powers in the environment, while the next valley along which doesn’t happen to speak a different language, doesn’t. This means that they can I think, in effect, legally remove the bear in question. These small number of persons, in many cases greedily linked to the skiing and hotel industry, are going against what by all accounts are the wishes of the majority of people in Catalonia who want to maintain the bear reintroduction programme. It’s a mockery of democracy.

Update 26/10/2008. The Aranese authorities are now searching for the bear Hvala with the objective of shooting it with tranquillising darts and removing it from the wild. They claim this is to avoid a “generalised vendetta” against all bears in the area (El Periodico) Meanwhile, the ecological organisation Depana while lamenting the injuries to the man, lay the blame at poorly organised boar hunts, and note that bears and boar hunting are perfectly compatible when managed properly, citing the example of the Cordillera Cantábrica.

Original story. Bad news for bears in the Pyrenees. A boar hunter in the Vall d’Aran was bitten today by a bear and has suffered minor injuries to his foot and hand. Although this is the first time a human has been attacked by a bear in the Pyrenees since the reintroduction programme began in 1996, it has led to calls from the Aranese government for the removal of all bears from the range, claiming that the “bear reintroduction experiment has failed”. One suspects that the Aranese authorities have been looking any excuse to stop the programme. So far the Catalan government has called for calm. The bear in question is “called” Hvala, the same bear which was filmed last month. New Vote No to reconsidering the reintroduction programme at La Vanguardia below.

• La Vanguardia
• Hvala on video

• Video by Forestman

A plan to hunt and shoot up to 100 wolves in Castilla y León has angered environmentalists who say the culling is an unnecessary sop to farmers who claim livestock are under attack. The Guardian

See also

• (above photo) Los ecologistas de Castilla y León rechazan que se cacen a 100 lobos esta temporada El Mundo
• 32 wolves to be culled in Leon Diario de León

Interesting news from Galicia. An environmental collective, Fegama, are calling for a more positive and effective management of the Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus) in their region by encouraging man’s coexistence with the species rather than continuing with the age-old battle against it. They suggest that instead of the present, negative method of paying farmers compensation for damages to livestock caused by wolves (often a long, drawn-out affair), that a system of subsidising farmers in areas shared by the wolves would be more beneficial to both. Subsidies would be used to pay for preventative measures such as livestock guardian dogs and fencing to protect flocks from the Galician wolf population of some 70 family packs. They are going to start a campaign of education to dispel the fear caused by myths surrounding the animal and to promote awareness of the important role that wolves play in the region’s biodiversity by keeping down numbers of their natural prey, for example Wild boar and Roe deer, two species that are potentially destructive. As always, prevention is better than cure.

News from La Voz de Galicia

Read about Iberian wolf conservation management on IberiaNature forum

In the city of Guadalajara, Castilla La Mancha the exhibition is open to the public from 11.00 – 14.00, Monday to Friday in the Teatro Auditorio “Buero Vallejo”, Calle Cifuentes, 30.

In Asturias, the larger of the two exhibitions can be visited in the town of Belmonte de Miranda from 11.00 – 14.00 and from 16.00 – 20.00, every day.

Wil Luiif has sent me these remarkable photos of a wolf in the Sierra de la Culebra he took this April.

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 and have a look at the archive on wolves

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

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.

El Pais

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)

A lacha sheep

Smoked with oak and beach, Idiazabal is one of my favourite Spanish cheeses, though I have many favourite Spanish cheeses.

Books about the Basque Country I have read

The Basque Country: A Cultural History by Paddy Woodworth: Full of fascinating facts. An excellent balanced account.

The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky. Interesting in places but wildly opinionated.

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

Bear eating carrion in Asturias (FAPAS) See also Good news for carrion birds + spainbearnews

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

See also forum thread on this news
 http://www.iberianatureforum.com/index.php?topic=455.msg3230;boardseen#new</p>

 Photo by Jordi Dalmau Caner

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]

A

And here is one of the spiked collars, a carlanca. More here. (Fapas)

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).