The Fundación para la Conservación del Quebrantahuesos is organising a work camp in July with volunteers in the village of Bejes, Cantabria. The camp is centred on helping the maintenance of traditional livestock farming in the Picos de Europa as an essential element in the conservation of the biodiversity and the recovery of the lammergeyer in the Cantabrian Mountains. Volunteers will help in sheering the sheep which are taken up to the high pastures in the summer. The camp involves three days working with the shepherds, two days learning about the fauna and flora of the Picos and one day’s rest. Knowledge of some Spanish is highly recommendable. More information from FCQ.

Naturetrek deny they cause the bears any disturbance, a spokesman stating that their tours look for bears at a distance using public footpaths, though they don’t guarantee sightings. The Asturian tourist board and ecologist groups are of the opinion that this kind of tourism is endangering the growth and survival of the precarious Cantabrian brown bear population. However, bear specialist organisations and the mayor of Somiedo all envisage a future of guided and regulated wildlife-watching tours contributing to the local economy without disturbing the bears. A delicate balance.

lne.es

Here’s another great live webcam, this time on a Spanish imperial eagle’s nest in Cabañeros National Park (Ciudad Real). At the moment of posting this the chick is less one month old. The aim is to raise awareness of the importance of the conservation of the Spanish imperial eagle.

Spain currently has 234 pairs of imperial eagles, 34 more than in 2006, of which 73 are found in Castilla-La Mancha. The bird’s principal threats are poison and power lines; between 1990 and 2007 at least 95 birds were poisoned and a further 130 were electrocuted. The lack of rabbits is also a problem. More information from aguilaimperial.org

See also Bonelli’s eagle webcam in El Garraf

It is increasingly difficult for shepherds to make a living these days, and without them the landscape and biodiversity they help to produce would be seriously affected. Ways must be found to increase the earnings of shepherds and to compensate them for the work they do. In Catalonia for instance there is a pilot scheme which pays shepherds to graze forests thus cutting down the undergrowth and reducing the risk of fire. They are also employed to detect and warn about fires.

Another way forward is the great initiative by a group of Aragonese shepherds in the Medinaceli and Calatayud area. Ser Pastor por un Día, offers you the chance to go out for a morning or afternoon with a shepherd and a biologist and learn about the different skills involved in shepherding, mastiff dogs, local sheep breeds, shearing, lambing and the landscape they help to create. Knowledge of some Spanish is probably a must. Tel: 659 834 121 or visit Ser Pastor por un Día. I intend to sign up one of these days.

It was decided to bring a chick from a nest outside the park. The new chick comes from a nest of two and its parents only managed to rear one of their two chicks last year.  The pair on the webcam have been unable to rear any chicks successfully for seven years, and the two other pairs of Bonelli eagles in the park won’t be breeding this year as the two males have disappeared (one while its mate was incubating. Lucy

STOP PRESS 01/04: Sad news for everybody who has been following the Bonelli eagle webcam. The chick appears to have died. Follow up the discussion on this on the forum where Clive notes it might be early enough for them to make another attempt.

The live webcam of the pair of Bonell’s eagles (Hieraaetus fasciatus ) is up again. The nest is in El Parc del Garraf, near Barcelona. This is the best wildlife webcam in Spain that I know of. Yesterday I saw the chick, white, cute and fluffy, squeaking incessantly for food as it’s mother tore a rabbit apart, and gently fed it. There’s a limited number of visitors at a time so if it doesn’t work try again later.

• More details on the project here
• More on Bonelli’s eagle in Spain
• Information on the El Parc del Garraf here on Iberianature
• Follow up the discussion on the pair on the forum

Eduard Durany, of the Barcelona Peregrine Falcon Reintroduction Project, a scheme close to my heart, has sent me this photo of chicks in Guadi’s Sagrada Famila. Eduard notes that this year four chicks have hatched in the nestbox, a record for the site. In 2005, 2 chicks were hatched, in 2006, there were another 2, and in 2007 just 1 females. The father was released in Barcelona port in 2001 and the female was born on the Montjuïc cliffs in 2006. Photos here another BCN pair. + More info on Barna’s peregrines.

Aragonese dinosaur hominid and maño by adoption and inclination, Rupert Glasgow has kindly sent me the latest update on Spanish dinosaurs from aragosaurus, this time news of Plesiosaur fossils on the coast of Asturias.

The latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (March, 2008) features a paper entitled “A Juvenile Plesiosaur from the Pliensbachian (Lower Jurassic) of Asturias, Spain”.

Plesiosaurs were marine reptiles that flourished through much of the Mesozoic Era, from the Upper Triassic to the Cretaceous. Along with the ichthyosaurs and the pliosaurs, they were classic “sea-monsters” or “sea-serpents” from the age of dinosaurs. Famously described as “a snake threaded through the body of a turtle”, or as resembling some strange cross between a lizard, a crocodile and a turtle, they combined barrel-like bodies, four flippers and a mouthful of sharp teeth: they were powerful and highly successful predators. Later forms from the Cretaceous reached lengths of 15 metres and had exceedingly long necks. Among cryptozoologists, the plesiosaur has traditionally been one of the favourite candidates as a possible Loch Ness Monster.

According to the authors of the paper, the size of the specimen found in Asturias suggests that it was an immature individual with an estimated body length of 1.8 metres. The fossil remains include eight vertebral centra, seven neural arches and sixteen ribs, which were recovered at the foot of the Santa Mera sea-cliffs, near Villaviciosa. They are currently on display in the Jurassic Museum of Asturias (MUJA).

The bones are excellently preserved, yet as the incomplete nature of the specimen makes precise identification impossible, the authors assign it to indeterminate Plesiosauroidea. It is the most complete plesiosaur yet found in Spain, one of the few specimens of young plesiosaur worldwide, and also one of the few specimens of plesiosaur dating from the Pliensbachian, some 183-89 million years ago.

For more information: see www.aragosaurus.com (Noticias, 19 April 2008)

29/04/2008 Latest news: fire appears to be moving away and is under control.

A fire is threatening the laurel forest of Garajonay National Park on Gomera, one of the last remaining Tertiary habitats to survive in Europe. The humid subtropical forest of Laurisilva covered almost all of Europe during the Tertiary, but disappeared due to climate changes . More soon. El Pais

Valsaín forest near Segovia (El Mundo)

A short run-around of Spanish animals sounds I’ve found on the web. Some remarkable grunting and snorting of Paca and Tola when they were bear cubs here. Emotive Iberian wolf howls from this Basque wolf site. The gruff barking of a roe deer and a wild boar sounding just like a wild boar somewhere in Extremadura from here. And here this rather nice natural history soundscape with commentary from the Valsaín forest near Segovia. And lastly but not leastly, the mating call of a female Iberian lynx Here from the BBC (real audio).

Dan Ward has just sent me the latest and as usual excellent Lynx Brief (pdf). This issue looks at:

• The serious situation for the lynx in Doñana whose population seems to be going from bad to worse. He calls for an action plan to combat:

- High traffic speeds and volumes
- Habitat loss to intensive agriculture
- Apparent mismanagement of protected areas
- The population’s small size and low diversity
- Conflicting attitudes amongst local people

This is all undoubtedly true but I personally feel the greatest threat to the lynx in Doñana is the extremely low rabbit population across the park which is forcing young lynx to disperse into conflictive areas. Despite being increasingly hemmed in by infrastructure, Doñana is still big and wild enough to support a far larger and almost sustainable lynx population than now, as indeed it did until myxamatosis arrived.

• The Iberian Lynx captive breeding programme is advancing well, both in terms of more captive breeding success, and in terms of actions and plans made for: further captive breeding centres, and; the planned reintroduction of captively bred animals in the future.
• Lynx presence in Cuidad Real, Castilla-La Mancha with a population of 15 individuals, including 3 reproductive females, 2 adult males, 4 sub-adults and 6 cubs

Cuidad Real province borders the area of northern Andalucía with current lynx presence (Andújar – Cardeña). This, combined with the fact that extensive surveys conducted over previous years failed to confirm lynx presence, suggests that the lynx in Castilla-La Mancha are individuals dispersed from northern Andalucía rather than a separate remnant population. Unofficial suggestions have been made that the photographed lynx come from a specific private hunting estate bordering Andalucía in southern Cuidad Real province, which, if true, would confirm the hypothesis that these animals dispersed from Andalucía. Unfortunately, however, the regional government has
refused to confirm the precise location of these lynx. The Castilla-La Mancha government has justified withholding this information so as to protect the lynxes’ habitat. However, the reverse would seem to be true. The precise location of lynxes in Andalucía has been widely publicised for several years without apparent detrimental impact upon their habitat. Moreover, it would seem that accurate and openly-available information about lynx presence has been key to allowing effective lynx conservation in Andalucía through co-ordination, lobbying, conservation projects, research and outreach.

Also check out Dan’s recommendation for the new soslynx.org website with some beautiful photos and videos.

The French hunter who in 2004 shot Canelle, considered the last autochthonous Pyrenean female bear has been absolved by a court, which believed the hunter’s version that he did so in self-defence after the bear attacked him. The death of Canelle caused outrage in France and led directly to the current reintroduction project of Slovenian bears. El Pais

Also in the Pyrenees, Guillermo Palomero, president of the Fundación Oso Pardo, notes that the Pyrenees still has enough habitat for a bear population to develop and stresses the role bears could play in increasing the need to combat the animal’s poor image here in contrast to the Cantabrian Mountains. (Aragon Digital). Some 15-20 animals survive on both sides of the border.

The Internet platform will be formed by several distinct areas. These include (there are more):

1. Public and private forums and blogs. Some of the forums will be closed to the public as they will deal with sensitive information discussed by experts.
2. The division of Spanish territory into areas each with a threatened species which will function as a flagship species around which to concentrate efforts (conservation, IT, education, business). The first of these flagship species is to be the brown bear.
3. A digital book covering all issues affecting Spanish nature.
4. A single-topic magazine sold in kiosks covering all aspects of each of the flagship species.

Some questions:

1. The project is very ambitious. How to organise so much information and so many people with so many different ends.
2. How to make these admirable digital contents useful for the real projects in villages and the countryside. That is, how to transform information into a real economic asset for the inhabitants of the rural areas, especially those least visited, and to turn their protection into an economic asset, and provide a real alternative to the attraction of mass development (skiing, golf, residential estates for the rich. industrial agriculture) in some areas and to the rapidly dying communities in many, many more. I repeat. We must offer real alternatives. The project must in the end be useful for the inhabitants of these areas and not just for the usual suspects (like me).
3. How to get everybody to work together. As Roberto Hartasánchez notes in this month’s Quercus, it is not only farmers, hunters and who are in conflict, but often pointless infighting between conservation groups themselves. As a Spanish friend recently commentated, the Reinos de Taifa come to mind.

A few ideas off the top of my head:

1.  Rural tourism was seen several years ago as the panacea to all ills but in its present model of just offering accommodation it has reached a saturation point in many areas, with properties being full for a few key dates of the year while the rest of the year owners are faced with very low occupancy levels. Rural tourism must be promoted - as it often is - with additional activities or as part of a route if it is offer more. I’m stating the obvious I know.
2. Conversion of activities - as an example I heard yesterday in Grazalema- with the end of EU grants a goat farmer is going to convert to horse riding activities. But the land will no longer be grazed which will affect the landscape and for example the orchid biodiversity.
3. Setting up/strengthening national commercialisation channels for agro products to bring the produce to the cities. Although the production costs will remain the same, distribution costs could be reduced. Perhaps a national brand “Producción de Biodiversidad” Agreements with large supermarket chains in return for improving their corporate image. Health food shops are not enough to bring about a revolution.
4. Broadband

More on this soon.

The Iberian lynx breeding programme is expecting five more female lynxes to give birth this week in El Acebuche, Doñana and two at the new La Olivilla centre in Santa Elena, Jaén. The mother’s names are Esperanza, Aura and Aliaga (El Acebuche) and Castañuela and Barraca - (La Olivilla). Last weekend Adelfa and Boj also gave birth to litters in El Acebuche. Terra

Video here of Boj and her cubs

On the negative side three lynx cubs have been found dead in the Coto del Rey, apparently from malnutricion. The litter of four were micro-chipped at the end of March when, according to WWF/Adena, two of them should have been taken from their mother due to the unlikelyhood of them all surviving naturally. According to their sources, the cubs weren’t in the best of health then. Follow this on the forum

Photos from Programa de Conservación Ex-Situ del Lince ibérico

The Castilla and León law courts have vetoed the project put forward by Tres Provincias S.A. for a ski resort in the San Glorio region of the Cantabrian mountains in the north of Spain, citing climate change as the main reason for its very doubtful economic viability. This makes it the first plan to have been denied on the grounds of climate change. The judgement points out that when, in 2006, the regional government of Castilla and León modified the laws protecting the Natural Park of Fuentes Carrionas and Fuente Cobre-Montaña Palentina (land included in much of the project) to enable the building of a ski resort, no scientific study was included to take into account the effects of climate change.

The threats to the environment and the future of the Cantabrian brown bear made by the project have led to huge opposition from conservationists, who have provided many environmental impact reports. The court also recognises that this project would be incompatible with the survival of many species of flora and fauna of the area, including the bears whose Eastern population would be severely affected.

News from El País

Read all about the subject on Iberianature forum

I loved this photo in El País today Urbanización para cigüeñas. I think it’s somewhere in Extremadura. Someone correct me on this if I’m wrong.

• Live stork webcam in Avila (updates every 30 seconds)
  

Using a technique for the first time with this species, the Foundation for the Reintroduction of the Lammergeier hope to release a bird bred completely isolated from human contact. They’ve built a 6×6m platform at 1,500m in Ordesa which includes a heated nest with a “puppet” adult bird to feed the chick and, next to it, a cage which the chick will be moved into after 80 days to continue the natural imprinting process as in this area of the Pyrenees there is the largest population of the species in Europe. A feeding station next to the cage will provide opportunity for the chick (born in Feb.) to observe and learn natural adult behaviour. After 120 days the young bird will fly for the first time.
They say that this tecnique will be used in the “near future” for the release of three birds in the Picos de Europa, from which I guess will be next year, the only difference being that the birds will be relocated from the Pyrenees two weeks before their first flights in the Picos.

The conservation group are already using another technique of strategically placing caged adult birds in areas in which they hope to encourage the Lammergeier to return.

For more info go to the discussion on Iberianature forum

Posted by Lisa

Tests have confirmed that Azahar, an Iberian Lynx from Jerez de la Frontera Zoo is pregnant and will hopefully give birth in mid-April. This would be the zoo’s first lynx litter. Azahar was brought to the zoo after being captured in the Sierra de Andújar as she had an injury which made her survival in the wild unlikely. There is a chance that the birth will coincide with the iberianature forum trip to the zoo’s facilities on April 13th. Terra

• Photo from Iberian lynx breeding Plan at Jerez Zoo
• January 2008: Boletín 47: Emparejamiento y apareamientos 2008

1. Brisa, a first-time mother gave birth, prematurely, to two cubs, one of which was still born. Lisa on the forum notes “If www.publico.es is not exaggerating Brisa spent a long time trying to bring it round but had to give up and ate it. Eight hours later, the second cub was born having shot out a metre after the last contraction  She rejected this cub (well, not an ideal first experience was it?) and the cub is being reared by experts in charge of the breeding programme. It’s still in a critical condition.”
2. The second news is somewhat better. Brisa’s mother, Saliega, gave birth to her 4th litter on Saturday. Three cubs were born. One of the three has since died but far the other two are fine.

• Photo above is a photo of Saliega in 2005 with her then-cub Brisa. More lovely photos here
• Follow this topic on the forum

Our understanding of the reptile world is in a constant state of flux as advances in DNA techniques continue. The latest is the promotion of a species of skink on La Gomera to full species. The joint study by researchers from France, UK and Spain is published in the latest issue of Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. They have baptised the new reptile Chalcides coeruleopunctatus, Lisa de Salvador in Spanish (Salvador’s or the Gomeran Skink in English), in honour of Alfredo Salvador, researcher at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid, who described it for the first time in 1975 El Mundo.

I’ve just come across Pueblos abandonados, an interesting blog detailing abandoned villages in Spain with hundreds of photos and lots of detailed information. The photo above is from La Vereda, an abandoned village in Guadalajara, with classic examples of the black architecture (arquitectura negra) style.

natura ibérica

And also a rural tourism section in Spanish should you be interested

A study has found Dupont’s lark (Chersophilus duponti) is losing its singing range because numbers are falling. Spanish biologists have found that when male larks had fewer birds from which to learn new notes or ranges their repertoire decreased. The number of notes a male uses is vital in attracting females.

Dupont’s lark, is only found in Europe in Spain where just 2,000 birds are thought to remain, as their natural habitat has been relentless destroyed by changes in land use, particularly the spread of irrigated dry land so we can all have cheap tomatoes in February, reforestation and above all by the growth of wind farms.

The scientists recorded the singing range and number of notes of 330 male birds, mainly in the Ebro valley region in north-east Spain. Using hidden microphones in places the birds usually inhabited, they taped mating calls. Paola Laiolo, who led the research team, said: “The female birds are attracted by the complexity and range of the male’s song.

“We found that the lack of variation of notes or scales corresponded to the areas where the population of larks was smallest. The birds which lacked tutors - or other male birds to learn from - had the smallest range.” Dupont’s lark has a range of 12 singing sequences or phrases. It is smaller than the skylark and its brown colour makes it hard to spot, so censuses are carried out by counting birds by their songs. The Guardian

More on Dupont’s lark on Iberianature

Note: SEO made Dupont’s lark its Bird of the Year for 2006.

According to the newspaper, La Voz de Galicia, there is hope among conservationists (and conservation-minded locals) that the bears will begin to recolonise parts of Galicia.

Comment on this article on the forum

Photo from Fapas

Posted by Lisa

Bears trashing hives in the Valle del Trubia (Fapas)

The number of bears identified in the Trubia valley in Asturias, from Quirós towards Oviedo, has doubled from eight in 2006 to sixteen in 2007. At least three breeding females have been identified who appear to be having few problems raising their cubs, leading to a lower infant mortality rate in this area than in other parts of the Cantabrian mountain chain. An abundance of food in the lower wooded valleys for these opportunistic animals, combined with recent mild winters, have contributed to this success. From Fapas.

(More wild neighbours for the semi-captive female Cantabrian brown bears in the same valley, Paca and Tola, who are presently awaiting a suitor in their new enclosure in Proaza in a plan to test their fertility with a captive male European brown bear from the Cabárceno safari park in neighbouring Cantabria previous to finding a suitable wild, male Cantabrian brown bear.)

By Lisa

Spanish researchers are currently testing a vaccine for rabbits against myxomatosis and haemorrhagic disease virus.

The rabbit, that most Spanish of animals, is a keystone species in Spain, forming an essential part of the food chain, and to a greater or lesser extent the basis of the diet for more than 40 species of mammals, birds and reptiles including the Iberian lynx, which is virtually dependant on it for survival. The arrival of myxomatosis in Spain in 1953 led to the decimation of rabbit populations with mortality rates of 95-100% in many areas, and the extinction of Iberian lynx across almost the whole Peninsula. It also had an unquantified but surely massive effect on other animals. Then, in the 1980s, just when the rabbit began to recover, a second rabbit-control disease, Rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (vírica hemorrágica in Spanish), was unleashed on the planet. Its arrival in Spain, once again decimated rabbit numbers, and in many areas rabbits have yet to recover despite millions spent by government and hunting estates. Myxomatosis attacks in the summer and haemorrhagic disease virus attacks in the winter.

The Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria has been working for more than ten years to find a vaccine against both diseases. Based on this research, the Laboratorio Syva with the support of the Federación de Caza and the Fundación Biodiversidad have now developed a vaccine which with the final field tests still to be done seems to be efficient. It provides an interesting example of hunters and conservationists working together.

According to Luis Ignacio Pérez-Ordoyo of the Laboratorio Syva, “The vaccine has been developed from the myxomatosis virus into which is inserted the gene of a protein of vírica hemorrágica, thus obtaining a recombinable virus”.

The vaccine is inserted under a rabbit’s skin and then is transmitted to other rabbits by contact. There is no direct transmission to the foetus in pregnant females. Once EU and Spanish medical authorities give the go-ahead, it can be used with wild rabbits. Then, in theory, this harmless virus will spread among the population, so inoculating them. Researchers assure the virus has no negative effect on rabbits or their predators. Tests have been carried on European lynx with no adverse effects. The vaccine has a 100% effectiveness for one year. (Note, I’m unsure as to whether it is then necessary to re-vaccinate or whether the virus will naturally do this). The same researchers also note that it is also necessary to improve the habitat of rabbits in Spain so they can dig burrows and feed, and to repopulate some areas.

This vaccine could be have a huge effect on the recovery of the Iberian lynx. Rabbits could recover very quickly, as they breed, as it were, “like rabbits” with up 11 pregnancies a year, giving birth each time to 3-9 babies. (Publico)

See also More protection demanded for rabbit + Origin of words Spain, rabbit and coney + Iberian lynx (with section on the rabbit)

A corrala (not corral!) is a traditional construction unique to the the Sierra de la Culebra. The heather thatch edging with an open centre protected sheep against both the rain and the wolf, and should the latter have managed to jump in, it would never have got out.

Most corralas are falling into disuse. A few have been restored as folk monuments. These days, shepherds lock up their flocks in warehouses.

Posted by Lisa

www.picos-accommodation.co.uk

Below an image from the gallery: the Hayados de Tejera Negra by Dave who writes:

“The beech trees of Tejera Negra were planted in remote times, when the climate was colder and more humid than it is now.” Read

Los 25.000 kilómetros del quebrantahuesos (El Pais)

More on the bearded vulture on Iberianature

• Lammergeyers in the Sierra de Guara
• Lammergeyers in Spain

According to the Centro de Investigacións Mariñas of Galicia barnacle captures are likely to be favoured by alterations due to climate change, though clam and cockle farming will be hit.

Clams and cockles will be negatively affected by torrential rains as their principal beds lie at the mouth of rivers. Heavy rains will bring a large influx of fresh water harmful to shellfish. High water temperatures will lead to proliferation of pathogenic agents which attack clams and cockles.

On the plus side, the production of barnacles has increased in recent years coinciding with a fall in algal blooms, though the article does not explain why. More soon when I understand this.

El cambio climático favorecerá la captura del percebe en Galicia (El Pais)

More on barnacles from Iberianature

I am at present unsure as to whether the dead livestock is to be collected in special areas only for carrion birds, or whether, mammals such as brown bears will also be able to benefit. Attacks by bears on fruit trees and beehives have increased dramatically since the ban as carrion forms an essential part of their diet.

Below a bear in Somiedo tucks into a mule (?), exempt from the Mad Cow rule. (Fapas)

See also archive on BSE and wildlife in Spain

1. Ptarmigan (Lagopus mutus)
2. Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus)
3. Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)
4. Common Guillemot (Uria aalge)
5. Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus)
6. Tengmalm’s Owl (Aegolius funereus)
7. White-backed Woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos)
8. Dupont’s lark (Chersophilus duponti)
9. Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica)
10. Grasshopper Warbler (Locustella naevia)
11. Balearic Warbler (Sylvia balearica)
12. Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca)
13. Rook (Corvus frugilegus)

Species whose status will worsen (23):

• Black Stork (Ciconia nigra)
• Red Kite (Milvus milvus)
• Black Kite (Milvus migrans)
• Montagu’s Harrier (Circus pygargus)
• Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus)
• Monk Vulture (Aegypius monachus)
• Spanish Imperial Eagle (Aquila adalberti)
• Grey Partridge (Perdix perdix)
• Little Bustard (Tetrax tetrax)
• Great Bustard (Otis tarda)
• stone-curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus)
• Collared pratincole (Glareola pratincola)
• Common Redshank (Tringa tetanus)
• Whiskered Tern (Chlidonias hybridus)
• Black Tern (Chlidonias niger)
• Black-bellied Sandgrouse (Pterocles orientalis)
• Pin-tailed Sandgrouse (Pterocles alchata)
• Stock Dove (Columba oenas)
• European Roller (Coracias garrulus)
• Lesser Short-toed Lark (Calandrella rufescens)
• Rufous-tailed Scrub-robin (Cercotrichas galactotes)
• Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus)
• Southern Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis)

There are also 75 species whose area of distribution will diminish considerably.

Especies cuya distribución en España se reduce considerablemente. Some examples: (Sorry can’t be bothered translating any more, but you have the Latin)

• Cigüeña blanca Ciconia ciconia
• Buitre leonado Gyps fulvus
• Busardo o ratonero común Buteo buteo
• Perdiz roja Alectoris rufa
• Chocha perdiz Scolopax rusticola
• Críalo Clamator glandarius
• Lechuza común Tyto alba
• Cogujada montesina Galerida theklae
• Collalba negra Oenanthe leucura
• Mirlo capiblanco Turdus torquatus
• Zarcero común Hippolais polyglotta
• Carbonero palustre Parus palustris
• Herrerillo capuchino Parus cristatus
• Agateador norteño Certhia familiaris
• Rabilargo Cyanopica cyanus
• Chova piquirroja Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax
• Estornino negro Sturnus unicolor
• Gorrión chillón Petronia petronia
• Verderón serrano Serinus citrinella

Species which will expand in Spain (7):

• Busardo o ratonero moro Buteo rufinus
• Halcón borní Falco biarmicus
• Perdiz chukar Alectoris chukar
• Perdiz griega Alectoris graeca
• Zarcero pálido Hippolais pallida
• Alcaudón chico Lanius minor
• Gorrión moruno Passer hispaniolensis

Mediterranean species which will expand in Europe (some examples):

• Águila perdicera Hieraeetus fasciatus
• Cernícalo primilla Falco naumanni
• Gaviota patiamarilla Larus michahellis
• Autillo Otus scops
• Vencejo pálido Apus pallidus
• Abejaruco Merops apiaster
• Abubilla Upupa epops
• Terrera común Calandrella brachydactyla
• Golondrina dáurica Hirundo daurica
• Collalba rubia Oenanthe hispanica
• Cetia ruiseñor o ruiseñor bastardo Cettia cetti
• Cistícola buitrón Cisticola juncidis
• Curruca cabecinegra Sylvia melanocephala
• Alcaudón común Lanius senator
• Escribano soteño Emberiza cirlus

The overall Spanish population is rising rapidly, and has recently topped 45 million people, confounding all predictions made just a few years ago. But, the only areas which are growing are those where immigration has reached. Parts of Spain, particularly in the West in the areas bordering Portugal, are still depopulating at an alarming rate. The provinces of Salamanca Leon, Zamora and Caceres have all lost people between 2006 and 2007. Orense, Lugo and Asturias are also in decline. The population of Salamanca fell by more 0.5 percent, though Guijuelo countered this trend with its role as a pole of regional development, attracting employment to the Iberian ham industry. In contrast, Zamora has been in freefall since 2000.

Professor Valantín Cabrero believes the problem is that Spain and Portugal “have always lived with their backs to each other, and if it were not for EU aid, the area would be a desert”, in contrast to the border between France and Spain. “Here (along the Portuguese border) are now areas with a Siberian demography with four to five inhabitants”. Projects have to struggle against decades of decline, heightened, historically, by dictatorship on both sides of the border. The young left these village en masse in the 1960s. Ever since they have been slowly dying. With thousands of villages all across Spain now populated by just a handful of old people, within ten years many will become ghost settlements, only visited by returning emigrants in the summer months. This will also have a huge effect on the landscapes and ecologies of the areas surrounding them, as many of these elderly people still work as small-holder farmers, cutting back scrub, keeping fields open. In many cases, they are the last of tradition dating back 2000 years.

In addition to promoting immigration, Cabrero believes the old La Plata railway should be reopened. “It would help save energy and reactivate the economy”. In contrast, waxing geographically as these people do, “autovias are tunnels of passage between faraway spaces”. Building roads in an area without people will not, in itself, attract them to move back, although it might increase day trippers.

One of the greatest problems of the rural world is the absence of county-wide policies, which are capable of organising and planning macro areas. Each village functions as its own microcosm, its own mini-republic, if you were. This is killing the rural world.

Another way forward is that provided by the new project, RUNA, organised by the Fundación Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, which seeks to combine rural life with the natural world, and hand back the custody of the latter to the people who live in isolated rural areas, and who, by accident or design, over the centuries managed to foster such a rich biodiversity. This is to be a partnership between those who live and work in the rural world (farmers, hunters, foresters, etc) and those who work in natural history (biologists, wardens and environmentalists), turning biodiversity into an economic asset which can foster sustainable development and bring young people back. Benigno Varillas, founder of Quercus, and the person in charge of the project notes, ”The rural as we know it is coming to an end. It needs reconversion… Nature conservation stands at a crossroads… As the rural population grows older and EU money dries up, the rural world must change…”(Fapas/LNE).

The forum as ever has lots of interesting things to say about this topic. Here’s Simon for example:

“I saw the issue on the TV news the other day and that article is really interesting. I think one key point is the frontier issue which. The same applied to our ‘comarca’, which lies on the border bewteen Catalonia and Aragon, we certainly feel very forgotten - there’s even a local refrain “Catalunya se termine a Camarasa” (you’ll have to look this up on the map to see what I mean, look out the huge natural barrier of the Sierra de Montsec and Tremp nestling in its basin beyond) we certainly used to feel very left out until new roads came in. Now there are lots of ‘Novas’ from Barcelona but still a general downward trend in population.”

A historical and cultural dictionary of Spain

Early days. Above Prestige Oil Disaster

More on peregrines

If good be damaged by rats, and there is no cat on board the ship, the managing owner of the ship ought to make compensation; but it has not been declared in the case where a ship has had cats on board in the place where she was laden, and after she has sailed away the said cats have died and the rats have damaged the goods before the ship has arrived at a place where they could procure cats; if the managing owner of the ship shall buy cats and put them on board as soon as they arrive at a place, where they can find them for sale or as a gift or can get them on board in any manner, he is not bound to make good the said losses, for they have no happened through his default. 
from “Les Bones Costumes de la Mar” (14th-15th c. Catalan text)  from Twiss, Sir Travers, ed. Monumenta Juridica, The Black Book of the Admiralty

Get Robert Hughes’ Barcelona from Iberianature/Amazon

Good news for this last 2007. Not a single Iberian lynx were killed this year on Doñana’s roads, in contrast to the five killed last year. This is no doubt much due to the 27 km of special fencing to prevent the lynx from crossing the road (El Mundo). Also the first lynx (a male) taken from Sierra Morena has been released in Doñana to improve the population genetic viability. (Terra)

Nick

The “aurora borealis” is a luminescent meteor, a phenomenon that frequently happens in areas close to the North Pole and which can also be seen in rather exceptional circumstances in regions of Central Europe. So the aurora borealis that could quite clearly be seen from the Pyrenees, and even from the top of the Tibidabo hill in Barcelona, on the 25th of January 1938, was an absolutely unusual occurrence. It was in fact a unique experience. There are no known accounts of any other event of that kind at such meridional latitudes. Furthermore, the phenomenon took place in the midst of war, thus causing terrible confusion and shock among the soldiers who were fighting on the Aragonese front.

From THE REPUBLICAN YEARS (www.bcn.es) by J. Fabre, J.M. Huertas and. Pradas