Ecologists in Action has warned of the existence of "political manipulation" in the assessment of the conservation status of the Iberian wolf and has submitted allegations to the six-year report. In them, it accuses Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, and Castilla y León of attempting to incorporate "serious scientific, methodological, and legal deficiencies" into the document in order to maintain the "slaughter" of this species.
According to the organization, these autonomous communities intend to "subordinate" a technical report to "political interests," altering and distorting the available scientific information.
The environmental organization maintains that the data submitted by Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, and Castilla y León lack "sufficient" scientific backing and aim to "artificially" construct a scenario conducive to future lethal control policies and to reduce the legal protection of the wolf.
In this regard, it specifies that the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge itself has already pointed out that a large part of the regional information presents "inconsistencies, errors, and methodological problems" that would prevent its validation before the European Commission.
For Ecologists in Action, these facts are "especially serious" when assessing the conservation status of the wolf and its situation in the Spanish State, because they entail a systematic minimization of threats such as poaching, illegal hunting, habitat fragmentation, forest fires, or genetic connectivity problems derived from habitat destruction or population bottlenecks, as the organization indicated in a statement sent to Europa Press.
They "invisibilize" the real mortality of the wolf
Likewise, it denounces that the aforementioned administrations "systematically invisibilize" the mortality associated with lethal extractions of wolves carried out by different autonomous communities after the species was removed from the List of Wild Species under Special Protection Regime (Lesrpe). In its opinion, this constitutes a "relevant omission" of empirical data essential for a rigorous assessment of the conservation status, particularly of 77 specimens.
"Conservation science cannot be placed at the service of spurious and short-sighted political interests. Artificially manipulating the conservation status of the wolf to justify its persecution constitutes a serious distortion of the scientific mechanisms provided for in the Habitats Directive," declared the coordinator of the Nature Conservation area of Ecologistas en Acción, Theo Oberhuber.
Allegations to the six-year report
Among the allegations registered, the organization calls for an update of population censuses following the major forest fires of last year in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, which affected hundreds of grids where the species is present. This review had already been requested from the regional governments, but, according to the entity, it "fell on deaf ears."
Ecologistas en Acción recalls that high-intensity forest fires, in addition to causing direct mortality of specimens, cause loss of refuges, decrease in prey, and greater functional fragmentation of the habitat, which compromises the viability of populations, further reduces their numbers, and limits genetic exchange.
A "non-existent" recovery of the wolf
The organization emphasizes that the situation of the wolf in Spain "is far from being considered favorable." The disappearance of the Sierra Morena population, the high mortality linked to human activities, and the scarce recolonization of large suitable areas demonstrate, in its opinion, that the recovery of the species "remains non-existent."
Ecologistas en Acción also questions the "political and legislative pressure" exerted in recent years by some autonomous communities and by certain parties with "specific interests" to reduce the legal protection of the wolf. It also recalls that the regulatory reforms that allowed the populations north of the Duero River to leave the Lesrpe have been appealed before the Constitutional Court by the Ombudsman.
The entity points out that numerous international scientific works warn that lethal control policies, such as those authorized by Cantabria, Asturias, and La Rioja, can have negative effects on the social structure and genetic viability of large carnivore populations. "The recovery of the wolf cannot be evaluated solely by counting packs. European regulations require an analysis of genetic connectivity, long-term viability, territorial expansion, and future threats," it added.
In this context, Ecologists in Action emphasizes that the preparation of the six-year report must be a strictly technical and scientific process, aimed at transmitting to the European Commission an objective and rigorous assessment of the real conservation status of species and habitats. Therefore, it insists that these reports cannot "be subordinated to political validation mechanisms that allow for the alteration or denaturation of available scientific information."
It also recalls that, in accordance with Law 40/2015 and the internal regulations of the Sectoral Conference on Environment, the decisions of this body may take the form of agreements or recommendations, but this does not alter the State's obligation to send objective, complete, and scientifically verified information to the European Commission. Consequently, Ecologists in Action denounces the attempt to transform the Sectoral Conference into "an instrument to condition or distort the technical evaluation of the species' conservation status."
Finally, the organization demands that the six-year report maintain the classification of "unfavorable conservation status" for the Iberian wolf and calls for any assessment to be based "exclusively" on scientific information that is "solid, transparent, and coherent" with the precautionary principle and "far from political and economic sector interests."