Asturias Ganadera has emphasized that the discussion about wolf control in Asturias should not revolve around the number of specimens intended to be killed, but rather on designing management mechanisms that make it possible to reconcile the presence of the predator with livestock farming, after the Asturian Government announced its intention to kill 67 wolves.
In a press conference, the organization has stated that the conflict with the wolf has progressively worsened during the seven years of socialist government with the support of IU and has linked part of this situation to the inclusion of the wolf in the List of Wild Species under Special Protection Regime (LESPRE), which, as it has indicated, has meant a "superprotection" of the predator.
Asturias Ganadera has focused on the situation of minor livestock, the reciella, whose presence it considers "so important in the ecology of our mountains for its clearing work" and which, it has claimed, "practically disappeared."
The organization has defended that control actions must be carried out immediately after attacks and in areas where recurrent livestock deaths have been confirmed. As it has explained, in this way wolves can associate control with their attacks and reduce the recurrence of damage.
In this line, it has considered "absurd" to kill a specimen a year later in a specific area when the livestock "is not even in the mountain," and has pointed out that there are packs that do not habitually attack livestock and that, for this reason, do not pose a direct risk to livestock activities.
Furthermore, Asturias Ganadera has demanded that interventions be recurrent until the damages are bearable for the farmers in each region. It has warned that in areas with scarce trophic alternatives, where wolves mainly rely on livestock as a food resource, attacks will continue despite the implementation of controls.
For this reason, it has proposed to delineate which areas should be declared "wolf-free," including Cuera, El Sueve, or Monte Llosorio, and to act "without delay" to prevent the establishment of packs in areas it considers of "maximum incompatibility" with livestock farming.
Finally, Asturias Ganadera has requested that local actors participate in the controls, especially ranchers and hunters, due to their knowledge of the territory, and has asked for a resolution from the Asturian government to guarantee their protection against possible complaints and establish that it is the Administration that assumes responsibility for the actions.
The organization has concluded that the application of these criteria will determine each year the number of specimens killed, which "can be 10 or 150," and has argued that "qualitative criteria should prevail over quantitative ones."