The population of wolves in the Iberian Peninsula is the most important in Western Europe. The demographic expansion of the wolves in one of the historical nuclei of the wolves is prominent. To the margin of the Italian or Spanish nuclei, the South of the Alps or the Pyrenees are respectively reconquered by the wolf. The region of Berlin in Germany receives wolves that come from Poland. The diversity of the geographical situations, the variation of the nutritious readiness leads to a repopulation for stages starting from areas already turns to colonize. From time to time the progression of the wolf can happen inadvertent. The knowledge of the strategies of exploitation of the preys for the wolf and the potentiality of the territories, they allow to advance the repopulation. This anticipation offers us the means to prevent the risks of tensions that they accompany the turn of this species.

After ten years of intense campaigns carried out by the Iberian non government organizations in defense of the wolf, they have arisen in different parts of the territory occupied by this species, serious conflicts that you/they force to a revision of the strategies for the conservation.

Already nobody doubt that the wolf is one of the threatened species that he has had a bigger capacity of populational recovery. The repopulation of new territories allows to do with optimism the future of the species more pursued by the man during hundred of years.

However, this good situation is not exempt of serious and complex situations that make of the conservation of the wolf one of the biggest challenges in the contemporary protection of the nature.

The Fapas has been the first group dedicated to the conservation of the nature that has broken a silence that other they have not dared to break in spite of the fact that they are many the specialists and the naturalists that know of enough that for lack of a good plan of administration of this species, several Autonomous Communities possess as only approach the one of killing all wolf that puts on to shot of the nursery.

The concept of untouchable that has been granted to the wolf from the environmentalist movement it retards or it hinders that the administrations put in practical administration plans and scientific control of the species. Remaining silent the mouth and closing the eyes to the indiscriminate slaughters that are come taking place in communities like Cantábria for years, Castilla-León, Galicia or even until in the own Asturias.

That it is necessary to conserve the wolf, neither nobody doubts it, but their expansion generates important conflicts to those that it will be necessary to look for with rational sense an effective solution, assuming approaches in those that it is valued scientifically where the wolf should inhabit and in what other places, for lack of ecological conditions, it should be controlled. We believe that it is always better to apply a serious and rigorous plan that to be quiet the mouth knowing that the only control that is made at the present time with the wolf is to hit him a shot.

The solid one calcareous of Picks it is in yes a biogeographical unit very well differed inside him they combine a series of ecosystems of enormous ecological importance. Busy for hundred of years for the man has arrived until our days with an unique stability, if we compare it with other mountainous areas of Europe. We can observe in the Picks two well differentiated areas, the South face and the North face, divided by the mountains that overcome the 2.000 meters of altitude. We would say that the south face has a wilder aspect, adjacent to the Cantabrian Mountain range, it has supported a smaller human activity, conserving its forests better and therefore it has been able to maintain communities of wild animals of great importance like it is the brown Bear and the wolf.

However, the north face has been busy from immemorial time for the man that has populated with flocks of domestic livestock, eliminating great part of its forests and expelling the big carnivorous animals. But in spite of this difference with the south part, we cannot say that it is an unbalanced territory, on the contrary, the human activity generated a new balance order, creating grass fields that sustain a rich population of domestic animals and therefore, depending on them maintained the birds that feed of dead animals.

From a point of view of ecological importance remarkable differences don't exist among both areas, both are a clear exponent of conservation of the nature. The occupation on the part of the wolf of the territories of the north of the Picks of Europe, is not a chance, neither an exception, regarding other areas. Their presence takes place for what the technicians denominate" effect mass"", that is to say, the most stable populations in wolves of the Cantabrian Mountain range produce copies that move in search of new territories.

The phenomenon of occupation of the wolf for this cause toward the Cantabrian Sea is not exclusive of Picks. The Asturian occident already has presence of this species almost until the same coastal coast. The north face of the Picks is therefore an area that he/she will receive wolf copies that look for new territories where to settle. The first presence dates of the summer of 1.986 where some two copies coming from Cantábria gave during some days, some passings to the mounts of Nedrina and Chopping in the oriental area of the Picks.

All increase of the population of a wild species that is or it was threatened, it is picked up by the movement environmentalist-conservacionista, with great happiness and illusion. Without a doubt, it is the result of many years of work and dedication effort and it fights against a social system that until very few years ago it ignored the important values of the environment.

The answer of the wolf in Spain has begun to overcome that initial stage of happiness to become debate element and discussion little by little.

Given the characteristics of the wolf, when this penetrates in humanized territories, their presence is in way immediate reason of conflicts where the man in an intent of defending their interests a hard battle begins against the wolf having become inflamed. It is for this reason that in diverse Iberian areas, the conflict for the presence of the wolf has ended in a great discussion, it doesn't exempt of risks for the nature. They highlight conflicts like the one arisen in the Valley of Carranza in the Basque Country, the characteristic of the Picks of Europe or the one that is beginning to arise in Navarra.

The environmentalist movement has adopted in a widespread way a defense posture to ultranza of the wolf, prefixing its presence to any other economic interest, be cattle or of another nature. The environmentalist organizations maintain to defend their approach that all the damages caused by the wolves should be. reimbursed by the Administration it is which is their amount or the quantity of domestic animals that kill.

It is an approach ultra conservation that like we say it prefixes the conservation from the wolf to any other social aspect.

Inside the same breast of the conservation although more linked to the direct work in the field, they are those that propose the protection of the wolf in those territories where the natural balance allows its existence without generating big conflicts with human interests. This thesis is sustained low approach that the Iberian Peninsula possesses many and extensive territories with excellent ecological qualities and where the wolf, after his occupation can reach a high population status, what guarantees his total protection and conservation.

Even this way, the presence of the wolf can also be accepted in other big areas where although, the ecological conditions of the territory are not good, the damages that it causes to interests cattlemen can be compensated economically.

These areas that we will denominate intermediate they will require of works of improvement of the habitat to endow them of the good ecological qualities for the wolf. They can also be areas they give where it is necessary to adjust the population of wolves and therefore through a rigorous study technician, to value the possibility of the populations' of wolves control through adapted capture methods, like they can be the control of litters or the capture of adults with selective traps.

Lastly, they would be those areas in which the wolf appears colonizing intensely busy territories for the human being and where it lacks the population of wild animals completely of which the wolf depends to feed. That is to say, to survive he/she will have to capture exclusively domestic livestock.

In the lovely thing of the examples we could put as characteristic territory to Somiedo. An intermediate area in Asturias, it could be Belmonte or Tineo and lastly, the clearest example in the third type, would be the north face of the Picks of Europe.

The environmentalist discussion is more intense in Picks for the circumstance that it leaves of this territory it is National Park.

The defenders of the Asturian nature, claim the total protection of the wolf for the fact of being a National Park. But before this situation it even arises with more force the doubt. Which the conditions that should prevail to conserve the wolf in a territory, their administrative qualification or their ecological capacity of sustentation are?. Who does have approach to decide on the presence of the species?. The environmentalists, the administration, the shepherds, the scientists...? Never up to now, in the modern history of the conservation of the nature in Spain had thought about such a complex problem.

Since in 1.982 we begin to work in the topic of the vultures, we knew that their main factor of risk was the use of the poison on the part of the shepherds and the Administration to combat to the wolf. Therefore to protect the vultures we needed to learn a lot of envelope topics of the wolf and their relationship with the rural world.

During seven years, the Fapas participated intensely in a work carried out in Somiedo to know the whole possible envelope the wolf in its natural habitat. They were thousands of working hours in the field, observing the behavior of the wolves, studying their biology or interpreting their social organization. At the same time, already from 1.986, 10 years ago, slopes of all the problems caused by the wolf in the north area of the Picks of Europe have been.

We believe that we have a certain documental base therefore and of experience that should guide us to have a clear approach of what is the wolf and what represents as wild species in the nature. The approach of the Fapas towards the conservation of the wolf in general and in particular for areas like the north face of the Picks of Europe or similar areas in Spain is very clear. Their total conservation in the balanced areas. Their protection and the population's lobera administration in those intermediate areas being necessary that the Administration pays with readiness the damages that the wolf causes. And lastly, in those areas, be which is the qualification of the territory, if the alone wolf can survive coast of domestic livestock, it should be subjected to a rigorous control.

What is a rigorous control?. would to Negotiate be to say the number of wolves that can have in a territory. Control is to eliminate the wolf. How?, with methods technically very used in other countries through the live capture.

Is to control to exterminate?. Not by no means, is the control to avoid that the wolf settles on a territory that we don't want that it occupies. In the case of the north face of the Picks, the control neither is to exterminate, because periodically new copies of the south area will enter or of the lateral ones through the" effect mass" '. therefore, the control of the wolf in Picks supposes that what won't allow is that he/she settles a population of wolves there.

Why?. have we seen that in this area of Picks the only resource of the wolf is to capture domestic animals, mainly sheep. We know for the study carried out in Somiedo that a compound family group for 4 - 6 wolves, he/she needs to capture a year a stocking of preys that is located in the 100 animals to survive. It is roe deer, deer, or boar mainly. In the Picks these species are substituted by the sheep. We know for the experience of the last years that the wolf when it attacks the sheep it doesn't only kill a, but rather although single coma of a, kills several. The dear stocking of sheep died by wolf attack is located among the 5 - 7 animals. That is to say, for each wild animal that the wolves kill in Somiedo, in the Picks they kill from 5 to 7 sheep. If a family group specifies of some 100 pieces, it is easy to estimate that a single family group of wolves in the Picks would cause from 500 to 700 dead domestic animals.

Well, and what? that the Administration pays the dead sheep and do let us leave alone the wolves. It could be ours conclusion. But if we make that the problem does it finish?. Who know the Picks they know more than enough that one of the shepherd's bigger economic activities the production of cheeses is. If we kill sheep with what do we make the cheese?. That the shepherds leave and do stay the wolves, do some allege, and do we say, if there are not shepherds, there is not livestock and won't there be vultures and other, if there is not livestock that they will eat the wolves?. is this exhibition exaggerated in fact, a little but it is not exempt of a certain reason.

The presence of the wolf in a stable way in the north face of the Picks, would generate such an uncertainty that one would come its current ecological structure below, modeling during the last decades through such a peculiar and interesting use as it is the pastoral one. Generate in Picks an ecological stability that allows to survive the wolf without entering in a clear confrontation with the man, again would be question of decades of years of work annulling the legitimate rights of the inhabitants of these mountains, inherited during hundred of years and that they have given place to an entire exceptional culture that has known, without destroying, to take advantage of the nature.

The conservation or not of the wolf in the Picks of Asturias is more than a technical approach or a wise decision of scientific, an exercise of putting into practice the common sense, avoiding to fall in the demagogic drama that to avoid their presence here, be to seek the extermination of the species.

Parallelly to the Project Bear, in the Fapas we started the Project Wolf that would consist on applying the same one operating system of control and payment of damages that had begun with the bears. Next to it, the campaign of sensitization and popularization of the necessity of protecting the wolf.

Soon we realized that to work with the wolf was not the same thing that with the bear. Every time that we said in the rural area of protecting the wolves, we created an important social rejection and we sensed what we could cause among people of the field a reaction negative that could finish in acts of attacks to the nature.

So we saw the necessity to change strategy. It was necessary to protect the wolf but without big campaigns of publicity, the work had to make it without getting the attention excessively. So we overturn us in fighting against the strychnine, without poison in the mount gave to the wolf a great conservation opportunity.

Still in the year 1.985, in Asturias two kilos of strychnine were sold distributed in small dose of four grams. It was a product that was distributed in multitude places, pharmacies, town stores, drugstores, era the well-known "Topicida Huarte". It is not exaggerated to say that even in that time, hundred of cattlemen, shepherds and farmers used this terrible product that, like it happens many times, it was completely forbidden to use.

How to eliminate the strychnine?. was a work of surveillance impossible in the mount, so we do decide to go to the maker directly, a laboratory of Valencia that distributed thousands of lots of poison in Spain.

We look for the legislation it has more than enough poisons and we made a report that we present in the Administration in Madrid, we denounce the commercialization of the poison and we get that the laboratory valenciano stopped to sell the strychnine, at the same time that it could retire of the warehouses the stock of the poison that had not still been sold.

It was a rigorous, quiet work and that without a doubt anyone that has a minimum of knowledge has more than enough fauna conservation an idea of the great repercussion it can be made that this performance has had for the protection of the wild animals.

Eliminating the poison, we have believed that the best strategy to protect the wolf has in fact been not to speak of him, or as a lot to generate in the society an image far from the wild and harmful wild animal that has always had.

The Fapas has not modified in the most minimum thing its approaches of protection of species in danger. In the case of the wolf, we have been how along the years has modified their situation, passing of being a scarce species and threatened to abundant in certain areas of Spain. It, takes for a pure logical conservation strategy to adopt approaches that allow to continue the conservation works.

The concrete case of the wolf is the first example that thinks about in Spain of a species that stops its conservation it is necessary to put into practice measures of populational regulation without it can be interpreted it in way some like a harmful activity. On the contrary, we are convinced that who defend the presence of the wolf in any territory type, they make it to lack the experience and knowledge of the complex ecology of this wild animal, in fact becoming this conservation approach a factor of risk that he/she threatens their conservation again in Spain.

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