Operators of the City Council of Ponga (Asturias) came across two wolf heads, one male and one female, at the gates of the town hall this Friday.
It was early, around 8:00 a.m., and the mayoress, Marta María Alonso, was on her way there when she received a call to inform her of the macabre discovery.
It was not an ordinary day in Ponga, there were only a few hours left to receive the president of the Principality of Asturias, the socialist Adrián Barbón, and his team, who held a meeting of the Governing Council in the town.
Politicians and ranchers categorically reject this type of behavior, which biologist and wolf expert Juan Carlos Blanco describes as a form of "blackmail, mafia style,
Godfather style."
It is not the first time that something similar has happened in the Principality: in 2017,
appeared
several dead specimens and exhibited in public places (car parks, traffic signs...), and in August 2018 a wolf's head and tail was found floating in the Infiesto municipal pool.
"It was very unpleasant, the heads looked like they were taken from a freezer, because they had some frost and they were there for a while until they were removed," Alonso describes.
"This is a crime and it is not a way to claim anything," he blurts out.
It refers to the conflict with the wolf (
Canis lupus signatus
) that worsened with its inclusion in the List of Wild Species under Special Protection Regime (LESRPE) in September 2021. Its capture is prohibited throughout Spanish territory and is only allowed in exceptional cases.
Before the adoption of this measure, in Asturias there was control by forest guards.
The ministerial order was rejected by farmers and the governments of Castilla y León, Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria, the communities where 95% of the wolf population in Spain lives.
“There are legal and administrative ways to fight against that decision and these behaviors are not a reflection of the feelings of the council or of the farmers.
I have it very clear, ”says the councilor of Ponga.
The City Council of her has filed an appeal in the National Court to remove the species from the list and another administrative one before the Ministry for Ecological Transition.
"You can be against the total protection of the wolf, because we understand that there must be control of specimens, but we have never asked for the extermination of any species," she says.
The President of Asturias reiterated after the Ponga event his "disagreement" with the Government regarding the current protection of the wolf.
“Everything is acceptable and respectable as long as the lines of respect are not crossed,” he declared.
Because, he added,
climate of tension
Mercedes Cruzado, general secretary of COAG Asturias ―one of the main agrarian organizations in the country― points to the climate of tension that exists in the area.
“People are very pissed off, we are suffering damage and we feel abandoned, but the thing with the heads... is not the way, we are not asking for the species to disappear”, she says.
What they propose is "to be able to continue with the livestock activity and live from it."
Despite not having official data on the attacks, she assures that they suffer widespread damage.
Regarding the compensation they receive, she maintains that they do not compensate, because the value of the animal is paid, but that amount does not cover everything invested in it.
In her case, for example, over the years the best dams and bulls have been selected.
“This is undermining and, in the end,
people get desperate and do those things [due to the appearance of the wolf heads]”, he says.
The only way to tackle the situation, he adds, would be to implement a serious and responsible control, with reports from scientists and rangers.
With this panorama, the expert on the species Juan Carlos Blanco maintains that in these cases the only thing that can be done is to condemn them and initiate police action.
"It is inadmissible and useless to discuss whether the wolves do a lot of damage or a little, with two severed heads there in front of them," he qualifies.
Blanco estimates that the wolf population has grown in the long term, but not in recent years and, in any case, he does not care "at times like these, because in no case is that circumstance an excuse to undertake such actions" .
Ignacio Martínez, president of the Association for the Conservation and Study of the Iberian Wolf (ASCEL), denounces "the lukewarmness and hypocrisy" of the Asturian Government.
"By not offering clear messages and being totally in favor of the protection of the species, it favors these situations," he argues.
live with wolves
David Buseco is a rancher, Asturian and lives in western Asturias, in the council of Valdés, the area where the most damage is caused by wolf attacks in the Principality.
“Here they are always, we are used to it, not like in Picos de Europa”, he explains.
He guards his goats every day.
“I wouldn't dream of leaving them out,” he adds.
The problems arise, he clarifies, when people get used to managing cattle without wolves for decades and when the wolves return, they continue to defend continuing in the same way.
And "it can't be like that, we have to change the way livestock is managed."
Buseco knows what it is to lose cattle.
His horses, between 60 and 70 asturones, are on the loose throughout the year in the mountains.
Without any handling.
Wolves kill between 15 and 17 horses a year for him, but he considers that normal.
“I don't spend a single euro on the maintenance of the horses, and that has its advantages and disadvantages”, he comments.
He also has mastiffs with the goats and for years the wolf hasn't killed any of them, “well, maybe one, if one lags behind”.
“Whoever says that dogs are not worth taking care of cattle is because he does not have good dogs.
I raise them here, they are among the goats, they are born with them, it is as if they were their family and they like to take care of them”, he assures.
The problem, in his opinion, is that he lacks information and understands that wolf controls are carried out, but they have to be "exceptional", for example,
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