Valladolid/Zamora (EFE) this end as a whole and more than 12,000 beneficiaries.
This is how it appears in the data consulted by EFE, which detail that in the last year with closed data (2021) the beneficiaries of aid for wolf attacks were 1,875 for an amount of 1.1 million euros, although in that case the count was closed on September 22, when the regulatory change that prevents wolf hunting came into effect after being included by the Government in the LESPRE -List of Species with Special Protection-.
The official records of Castilla y León quantify wolf attacks at 15,874, including 2,714 in 2021, the highest of those reflected in the Ministry’s statistics, which details that half of these attacks are located in the province of Ávila (1,345 in the last year recorded).
80% of applicants, compensated
This circumstance is related to the differentiation that existed until September 2021, whereby the wolf was a protected species from hunting south of the Duero -community regulations-, while in the territory to the north of the river there were authorized hunting quotas. for population control.
In addition to Ávila, the provinces with the most accumulated attacks in 2021 are Segovia (555), Zamora (296), León (210), Salamanca (139) and Palencia (117), while others such as Burgos (34), Soria (16 ) and Valladolid (2) have lower records.
Most of the applicants for these payments, 80 percent, have received these compensations for wolf attacks on their herds or cabins.
However, the data from recent years reflect a decline, since between 2017 and 2019 the percentage of beneficiaries over applicants was around 90 percent and in 2021 that indicator dropped to 71.1 percent.
In these seven years to which the statistics provided by the Ministry refer, there were a total of 14,870 requests for aid or compensatory payment for damages presented by farmers in Castilla y León, compared to the 15,874 attacks recorded.
The records indicate that, in absolute terms, 2,826 were rejected, which is equivalent to one in five applications (20%), although in 2021 the differential between applicants and beneficiaries was 760.
This left almost 30 percent of aid applicants without aid.
The new wolf census, ready
Pending the new census of the wolf in Castilla y León, which is finalizing the Ministry of the Environment and which points to a “substantial increase” in the packs in this territory, the documentation provided by the Board speaks of 179 packs -152 to the north del Duero and 27 to the south-, although these data correspond to the last census carried out (2012-2013).
Precisely to control the population of these animals, the Junta de Castilla y León has been approving until its prohibition in September 2021 a series of quotas to kill wolves in the territories north of the Duero, which was where European and state regulations allowed it. .
During the 2015-2021 period, hunting quotas were authorized to kill between 113 and 143 wolves each season, up to almost 800 potentially huntable animals, although in practice the catches never reached the established maximum.
Specifically, in the last year analyzed (2020-2021) the quota of animals that could have been hunted was 113 and finally 59 wolves were killed, almost the same as in the previous year, with 113 authorized and 61 hunted.
On the other hand, a year before they were not registered because a judicial sentence prevented the hunting of wolves in this Community.EFE
