They denounce an alleged scientific study that is mutilating and killing wolves in Asturias

The study of wild fauna includes, in some cases, techniques for live capture of animals, marking and geolocation.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 May 2023 Monday 14:38
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They denounce an alleged scientific study that is mutilating and killing wolves in Asturias

The study of wild fauna includes, in some cases, techniques for live capture of animals, marking and geolocation. When these practices are carried out with scientific criteria, the researchers follow action protocols of recognized effectiveness, provide the means to minimize possible damage and disseminate the results of their work.

None of these requirements are being applied in the case of the wolf in Asturias, where, as denounced by the Fund for the Protection of Wild Animals (Fapas), since 2017 a "supposedly scientific project" has been carried out that is causing the mutilation and death of wolves as a result of poor practice in live capture and marking of animals for satellite monitoring.

A long and complex investigation by Fapas, documented with a shocking video, shows various cases of wolves seriously injured by traps supposedly set by scientists to facilitate the marking and monitoring of animals. In some cases, the damaged wolves, with broken legs or strangulation, end up dying after a long agony, as can be seen in the images released by this entity (non-profit association) created in 1982 for the study and conservation of nature. .

Fapas considers that this wolves monitoring action, sponsored by the government of the Principality of Asturias, is "possibly the biggest fraud in the history of nature conservation in Spain."

To arrive at this resounding statement, Fapas states that "researchers participating in the project have sold internationally that the capture of wolves and their monitoring is part of a conservation project" but the data and images accumulated by this conservation entity indicate everything. otherwise. The conservation entity denounces the lack of information about this supposed project by the scientists involved and the government of Asturias.

Among Fapas's conclusions, it is indicated that the capture, marking and monitoring of wolves could actually be "a project devised Machiavellically from the Asturian Administration to kill wolves and take advantage of political opportunities."

Roberto Hartasánchez, president of Fapas, explained to La Vanguardia that, after the investigation and the documented cases, this conservation entity "is going to denounce before the European Union this unfortunate act of indiscriminate capture of wolves in Asturias". In fact, indicates Fapas, currently this work of capturing wolves is maintained under the cover of the Government of Asturias and the Ministry of Ecological Transition, which uses EU resources.

Hartasánchez reiterates that the wolf research and monitoring work carried out by Fapas in recent years "has made it possible to verify how the trapping methods to control family groups of wolves became an uncontrolled action in which in the trapping processes numerous wolves were injured and mutilated to lamentable extremes, quite possibly all of them reaching death processes under the most degradable physical states".

Apart from this bloody wolf trapping, Fapas has been able to detect that seriously injured wolves have had to look for food resources to survive by approaching humanized environments where they have been able to find human waste, or attack dogs and even chickens. This situation is harming the coexistence between wolf populations and humanized environments, that is, it is leading to a reality completely contrary to what is theoretically intended with wolf population monitoring programs, Fapas explains.