UPGRADE: The Xunta de Galicia has shown its rejection of the inclusion of the wolf in the list of wild species under special protection as approved by State Commission for Natural Heritage and Biodiversity at a meeting held this Thursday.
In a statement sent to the media, the Department of the Environment maintains that This fact will suppose “a very serious management problem” for the four Autonomous Communities that are home to more than 95% of the wolves in Spain., who unanimously rejected the proposal
presented by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.
MADRID / SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, 4 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The State Commission for Natural Heritage of the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge has approved this Thursday, February 4, the inclusion of all existing wolf populations in Spain on the list of species under special protection, so automatically it is no longer considered a hunting species. This has been pointed out to Europa Press by sources from this body that brings together the Ministry with the autonomous communities.
The proposal has been presented by the Commission and has required a double vote because in the first one it was a tie. Finally, a simple majority, necessary to adopt the decision, has given the go-ahead, thus homogenizing the status of wolf populations throughout the national territory. Up to now, Wolf populations south of the Duero were already included in the list but, nevertheless, it was still game species north of the Duero.
Cantabria, Asturias, Castilla y León and Galicia, all of them communities with wolf populations north of the Duero, have voted against the proposal, position to which other autonomous communities have joined governed by the PP, according to sources familiar with the vote. Precisely, the Xunta had presented allegations to the Government against this decision. In the case of Galicia the last census shows the presence of about 90 wolf breeding herds, so that “in general terms it is maintained or even experienced an increase in the last 15 years. “
Furthermore, the Galician Government indicated that the presence of this species is “wide”, reaching 72% of the Galician territory, especially in the provinces of Lugo and Ourense. “There is and probably will continue to be a habitat large enough to maintain their populations in the long term,” he says. This Thursday, the Minister of Development and Environment of Castilla y León, Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones, has advised that if the “ideological” proposal of an environmental organization to include the wolf as a species of special protection north of the Duero there will be an “important battle” of Castilla y León, Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria against the decision.
Support from the rest of the communities
In any case, the proposal has gone ahead with the favorable vote of the rest of the regions and will be elevated to Minister Teresa Ribera, which will materialize the decision through a ministerial order. At the same meeting, it was also proposed the inclusion of the turtle dove in this list, but there has been a tie in the two votes held so for now it has not received the endorsement of the Commission.
