Discover the Berberana sea lion colonies

* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
23 June 2023 Friday 16:44
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Discover the Berberana sea lion colonies

* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia

Wolf colonies are old buildings that were used to hunt wolves. This type of construction consists of making walls or stone palisades in the shape of a funnel that lead to a well.

The measured length of the right wall of the colony is 472 meters and that of the left, 545 meters, although they have not been fully restored. The pit is 24 square meters. The last wolf captured here was in 1955.

They are constructions, therefore, of great size. In the images we can see part of the walls. They were used so that the wolf entered the funnel attracted by a bait and there the hunters pushed it to the end, where it fell and was finally killed there.

This type of trap is complex to produce, which is why several people participated in its construction. In addition, a group of hunters was necessary to be able to catch the animal.

In the north of Burgos you can find the largest accumulation of sea lion remains in the entire Iberian Peninsula, a unique ethnographic heritage, but in many cases it is disappearing due to lack of conservation.

This is not the case of the Berberana sea lion colonies, protagonists in this report in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia, which are in very good condition thanks to the fact that they are under the protection of a Natural Park.

The sculptures that we see in these images refer to the allegory of the beater, since the residents were forced to take part in the hunts to help catch the wolves.