http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=289736

La Autoridad para Naturaleza y Parques de Israel no puede proteger a los lobos
de los Altos del Golán sin intervenir de forma continua en su modo de vida. Por
ello dan permisos a los ganaderos para que disparen contra los lobos, lo que ha
causado ya 11 abatimientos en lo que va de año. Si se sigue así, para final de
año se habrá matado a un tercio de los lobos.

¿Podemos extrapolar de alguna manera esto a algunas regiones españolas? ¿Nos
puede servir como ejemplo de gestión, ya sea positivo o negativo?

Aullidos,
M.



Cry wolf

By Zafrir Rinat



One of the most difficult missions faced by nature preservation
organizations in small, crowded countries is to ensure the existence of wild
animals in nature without human intervention. In Israel, the Nature and Parks
Authority has succeeded in maintaining the survival of many wild animals, but
for many others, such as the wolves on the Golan Heights, the organization is no
longer capable of protecting them without incessant intervention in their way of
life.

In the first four months of this year, 11 wolves were shot on the Golan
Heights by cattle breeders, with the permission of the Nature and Parks
Authority. If this rate of killing continues, nearly a third of all the adult
wolves on the Golan Heights will be killed by the end of the year. And this is
only part of the damage, as wolves die also from poisoning, being run over by
vehicles and sickness.

The sanctioned shooting is not the result of a sudden decision by the
nature authorities. It is part of a new strategy, intended to make the existence
of a stable population of wolves on the Golan Heights possible, alongside the
agricultural development of settlements there. One of the tactics here is
thinning out the wolf population.

In the 1990s, any calves were attacked and devoured by wolves, and the
cattle breeders demanded a large-scale dilution of the wolf population. The
nature conservation organizations retorted that the wolf is a unique creature
and that thorough research had to be undertaken before making decisions
affecting its fate.

The Nature and Parks Authority conducted a study from 1998 to 2001, one of
the most comprehensive of its kind ever done in Israel. Its central conclusion
is that there is a highly stable population of wolves on the Golan Heights
(nearly 100 adults), which can be thinned out. The researchers also said the
process of reducing the wolf population should be carried out in several areas
of the Golan Heights. In the southern Golan, far-reaching intervention could be
undertaken by shooting or otherwise killing young wolves.

This policy is intended not only to protect cattle breeders but also to
enable the wolf population in the southern Golan to recover. The number of deer
in that region has declined in the past nine years from 3,000 to fewer than 400.
Wolves prey heavily on deer and thus jeopardize their existence.

Even though the thinning strategy rests on a scientific foundation, it
raises questions. One of them concerns the degree to which the authority is
working to implement the demands of the Golan Heights settlers, including the
improvement of methods to protect herds of cattle and the proper maintenance of
these methods. There is also an urgent need to prevent the phenomenon of
discarding large amounts of food at refuse sites. This enables predator
populations to develop on a basis other than the food available to them in
nature. The increase of the predators causes friction with cattle breeders and
imperils the deer population.

The Nature and Parks Authority should take into account that its new
policy of thinning the wolf population is liable to place the wolves in danger
of extinction. If that happens, it will be very difficult to reverse the
process. The authority's calculations about the wolves' staying power are based
in part on forecasts of the growth of the wolf population, which could be wrong
or inaccurate.

The authority is aware of this danger, and therefore the director of the
study, Alon Reichman, recommended that the wolves be monitored to detect changes
in their population at an early stage. He also recommended the improvement of
the sanitation on the Golan Heights (treating the refuse sites) and protection
for cattle. However, implementing these recommendations is likely to run into
difficulties due to the authority's meager organizational and financial means.
Additional problems are also likely to arise in long-term scientific monitoring
and in running an enforcement system that will restrict the breeders to the
shooting conditions laid down by the authority and bring about better protection
for the cattle.

The test that the Nature and Parks Authority faces in regard to
safeguarding the wolf population on the Golan Heights reflects a more general
problem that relates to the preservation of nature throughout the country. If
funding is not found for continued investment in research about wolves and for
monitoring them, the future of the wolves on the Golan Heights will be seriously
imperiled. The howls that Reichman heard night after night, in some cases from
several flocks at once, will gradually fade and vanish.




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