Castile and Leon is home to Western Europe’s largest wolf population and the wolves are putting livestock at risk. Farmers want wolf culling but EU rules are stringent.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The Iberian wolf is a clever animal.
00:05They know that the sheep and calves here in northwestern Spain are easy prey.
00:17You get up in the morning, want to check on your herd and see this.
00:23Felipe Corazal is a livestock farmer here in northern Spain.
00:27An average of 15 farm animals are killed by wolves in this region every day.
00:32For farmers, it's a heavy blow, even though the regional government pays compensation for the animals.
00:39For me this is a huge loss, not so much the sheep killed by the wolf,
00:43but also what comes afterward, the miscarriages, the stressed herd.
00:49Felipe owns 1,200 sheep. He's lost more to wolves than he can count.
00:54That's why the predators were once hunted down in this part of Spain,
00:58but three years ago wolf hunting became illegal across the country.
01:03The wolf doesn't have to disappear completely, but it has to be held in check.
01:08If we want our herds to graze and help prevent forest fires,
01:12if we want there to be shepherds in our villages,
01:16then we have to keep the wolves under control.
01:22The Castile and León region is home to about 1,800 wolves.
01:27Some areas have the highest population density in all of Western Europe.
01:32Even so, the Iberian wolf is under protection in Spain.
01:39Tomas Llanes is a wolf activist.
01:45He works at a wolf park in Sierra de la Culebra
01:48and explains to visitors why he believes wolves need to be protected.
01:53The wolf plays a fundamental role in the ecosystem.
01:58It hunts the weak and vulnerable prey.
02:01That makes it something like a veterinarian of the forest,
02:05helping to prevent the spread of disease.
02:10Wolves no longer have any natural predators here.
02:13The wild bears that once lived here are long gone.
02:18Although they have no natural predators, wolf packs control their own numbers.
02:23Only the alpha pair has offspring, not the entire pack.
02:27And the extent to which they reproduce also depends on the food supply.
02:34José Vicente Pérez says there's more than enough food here.
02:38He's a hunter and has killed wolves before.
02:42Look, wolf tracks. A wolf was here.
02:48And there's another, a very fresh one.
02:56We used to hunt everything. You didn't need a permit.
03:00And because so many sheep were getting killed,
03:03we had to go to the forest to hunt.
03:06Now that they've banned that,
03:08we have to live with more and more livestock being killed.
03:16The regional government is at an impasse.
03:19Even though there are plenty of wolves in this area,
03:22they're listed as an endangered species in all of Spain.
03:26Wolf hunting is banned and local authorities have banned it.
03:30The conflict is escalating.
03:32The wolf population will eventually stabilise
03:35when all of the remaining land and territory is occupied.
03:38But then large-scale livestock farming will no longer be possible here.
03:43But livestock farming is an important source of income in this part of Spain.
03:48Felipe, a sheep farmer, has already started his business.
03:51He's been in charge of the sheep farm since the beginning of the pandemic.
03:56If it gets any worse, I'll look for something else,
03:59move to the city, work as a street sweeper, or whatever.
04:04I'm serious.
04:09If the farmers give up their flocks, there will be fewer sheep.
04:13And if they don't give up their flocks,
04:15there will be fewer sheep in the future.
04:19If the farmers give up their flocks,
04:22there will be fewer sheep and less prey.
04:25The wolf population would decline.
04:28It would diffuse the conflict, but at a cost.