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SPAIN EXPLAINED

MAP: Where in Spain do wolves live?

The Iberian wolf has recovered from near extinction decades ago to become a political issue in recent years, with the population now mainly concentrated in one particular corner of Spain.

Published: 25 September 2023 16:15 CEST
MAP: Where in Spain do wolves live?
A wolf stands at the Iberian Wolf Centre in the Sierra de la Culebra near the village of Puebla de Sanabriae. Photo: PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP.

The Iberian wolf (lobo ibérico) is a subspecies of grey wolf that lives in the Iberian Peninsula. They generally live for 3 to 4 years in the wild, measure 130-180cm long and can weigh up to 50kg.

Historically the Iberian Wolf roamed throughout Spain, but after almost going extinct and becoming a protected species, the population is now concentrated in a specific part of the country.

READ ALSO: Spain’s livestock farmers raise alarm over rise in wolf attacks

Despite the species being on the brink of extinction in the 1970s, the Iberian wolf population has been expanding and in the 21st century can be found mainly in the northwest of Spain. In fact, after recent changes in hunting legislation, wolves have become a controversial topic in recent years.

Map showing Spain’s wolves population decreasing from 1840 until the mid 1990s. Map: EP Data

How many wolves are there in Spain?

It’s hard to say exactly, but the most recent data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition (2012-14) reported 297 wolf packs, of which 278 are exclusive, meaning they are only present only in one Spanish region.

Several environmental bodies put the number of individual wolves in Spain roughly somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500.

Where do the wolves live?

The wolf population in Spain is concentrated in the north and north-west of the country, mainly in Castilla y León, Galicia, Cantabria and Asturias. There are also smaller populations in nearby mountain areas such as the Basque Country, La Rioja, Guadalajara and northern Portugal.

Some of the forested areas in the north of Spain where lobos (wolves) have been spotted in recent years include Sierra de la Demanda, Somiedo, Cadí-Moixeró, Gorbeia, Do Courel, O Invernadeiro, Saja-Besaya, Picos de Europa and Sierra de la Culebra.

In the mountainous areas of northern Andalusia there are also some smaller populations, although they are isolated in the southern sub-plateau and quite rare. Some of these areas include Sierra de Andujar, Despeñaperros, Sierra de Cardeña y Montoro, Sierra de Hornachuelos, Valle de Alcudia and Sierra Madrona, Sierra de Guadarrama and Sierra de Gredos.

Map showing approximate location of wolves across Iberian Peninsula. Source: EP DATA

The north-west really does dominate wolf populations in Spain. In fact, 96 percent of the wolves in Spain are found in Castilla y León, Galicia and Asturias, according to the latest data from Spain’s Ministry of Ecological Transition.

READ ALSO: Spain farmers jailed for illegal water tapping at nature reserve

The region with the biggest Iberian wolf presence is Castilla y León. According to the latest census data, Castilla y León region is home to 179 packs, 163 of which live exclusively in the region.

However, in terms of population density north-east Galicia has the highest density of wolves anywhere in the world, according to a study published in the scientific journal Recursos Naturais reported Europa Press, based on the wolf population there between 2019 and 2020.

The politics of wolves

In Spain in recent years wolves have become somewhat of a controversial political topic. In 2021 the Spanish government took measures to protect the Iberian wolf in Spain by banning its hunting in large parts of the country, including it on a list of species under a Special Protection Regime.

However, farmers in Spain, particularly in the northern regions where wolves are most prevalent, have complained that the ban has led to a spike in attacks on their livestock.

In 2022, farmers across Spain reported 12,898 wolf attacks, a 20 percent increase on the year before, according to farmers’ unions. Many farmers and hunting lobby groups have called for a reversal of the law.

This is not a topic of debate solely in Spain, however. Around Europe too, politicians are weighing the pros and cons of balancing species protection and the impact on farmers and rural communities.

In September of 2023, almost exactly two years after the Spanish legislation was passed, the European Commission president called for a reconsideration of protection rules for wolves around Europe.

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SPAIN EXPLAINED

Why does Spain have no nuclear weapons?

Despite a top secret project to build them during the dictatorship, Spaniards have never been keen on the idea of nuclear weapons, especially since the US accidentally dropped four nuclear bombs on Almería.

Published: 15 April 2024 16:36 CEST
Why does Spain have no nuclear weapons?

Spain isn’t part of the reduced group of nations that have nuclear weapons, which includes European neighbours the UK and France.

It has never tested nuclear weapons, does not manufacture them, nor has it bought them from nuclear allies who make them.

Spain is still a NATO member and doesn’t shy away from involving itself in foreign policy debates, often taking positions against the mainstream.

But it has still never joined the nuclear club nor have Spaniards ever really wanted to, even though former dictator Francisco Franco had different ideas (more on that below).

In fact, Spaniards seem to have an indifferent if not abnormally negative view of nukes, largely stemming from an accident by an American air force on Spanish soil in the 1960s.

READ ALSO: How important is nuclear power to Spain?

A 2018 study on state attitudes towards nuclear weapons concluded that Spain had “little to no interest in nuclear weapons.” Yet Spain still benefits from NATO’s so-called ‘nuclear umbrella’ defence and has nearby neighbours, including France and the United Kingdom, that are nuclear powers. It is also home to several American military bases.

In that sense, Spain balances a somewhat unique position of being pro-nuclear for other countries and as a broader defence deterrence at the global level, but not on Spanish territory because it knows that would not sit well with Spaniards.

But why is this? Why doesn’t Spain have nuclear weapons?

Anti-nuclear sentiment among Spaniards

According to an article for Institut Montaigne by Clara Portela, Professor of Political Science at the University of Valencia, the Spanish people are “sensitised on nuclear weapons, if not negatively disposed towards them.”

Much of it comes down to history and, in particular, an accident involving nuclear weapons on Spanish soil. As part of post-war defence and security agreements Spain made with the U.S, American nuclear weapons were kept on Spanish soil.

Spaniards weren’t keen on the idea. Portela notes that “their presence at the Torrejón base near Madrid was a controversial issue” among the public, but it was an accident in 1966 that really soured Spaniards to nuclear weapons after an American aircraft carrying a hydrogen bomb crashed and dropped the device in the waters near the town of Palomares off the coast of Almería.

READ ALSO: Ten of the best documentaries about Spain

The incident caused “one of the bombs to fall to the seabed and leak radioactivity” into the surrounding area, Portela states, something that would have no doubt hardened many Spaniard’s perceptions towards nuclear weapons, especially as the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was still in living memory for many.

A NATO-nuclear referendum

This scepticism towards nuclear arms was solidified twenty years later in a referendum on NATO membership. Though the government of the day campaigned for continued membership of the military alliance, it made it conditional on Spain also continuing as a non-nuclear power. A clause in the referendum consultation outlined this condition: “The prohibition to install, store or introduce nuclear weapons on Spanish soil will be maintained.”

Spaniards backed their continued, non-nuclear NATO membership by 13 percent.

A year later, in 1987, Spain formally signed the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), further cementing its non-nuclear stance.

And that was it — with this and the result of the referendum, Portela suggests that “the issue of nuclear weapons was all but archived. It hardly re-surfaced in public debates for decades.”

An atomic bomb of the type nicknamed “Little Boy” that was dropped by a US Army Air Force B-29 bomber in 1945 over Hiroshima, Japan. (Photo by LOS ALAMOS SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY / AFP)

The nuclear dictator?

Despite the Spanish public’s distrust of nuclear weapons, there was one Spaniard in particular who was quite keen on the idea: Franco.

In what may be one of the most terrifying historical ‘what ifs’ ever, the fascist dictator wanted to equip Spain with a nuclear arsenal, started a project to do so, and came very close to achieving it.

The ‘Islero Project’, as it was known, was top secret and lasted for several decades of scientific research until it was finally abandoned in the 1980s after his death.

Firstly, a brief consideration of the geopolitics of the time is worthwhile here, and it concerns the Americans again. When the Second World War ended in 1945, Spain immediately became isolated on the international stage owing to its support for Nazi Germany and fascist Spain. It was excluded from the UN and shunned as a real player in international relations.

As the Cold War and threat of nuclear annihilation grew throughout the 1950s, Franco’s fierce anti-communism combined with the strategic geographical positioning of Spain led the U.S. to form closer ties with the dictatorship, promising financial aid and image rehabilitation in return for allowing American military bases in Spain.

READ ALSO: Where are the US’s military bases in Spain and why are they there?

The Junta de Energía Nuclear was created in 1951, undertaking research and atomic energy development more broadly, and it sent promising researchers to study in the U.S. When they returned, the Islero project continued in secret.

Rather bizarrely, it was the accident at Palomares years later that actually gave the scientists the key to designing an atomic bomb. Unconvinced by the American’s explanations for the debacle, the Spaniards working on plans discovered the Ulam-Teller method, which was fundamental to the development of the thermonuclear bomb or H-bomb.

However, the project was then frozen by Franco himself because he feared the United States would discover that Spain was trying to develop its own atomic bomb and impose economic sanctions.

After Franco’s death in 1975, Spanish scientists secretly restarted the project, but in 1982 the new Socialist government discovered the plans and disbanded the project. By 1987 the González government announced Spain’s accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty NPT and the issue has rarely even come up as an issue since then.

And despite that, Spain is a NATO member, regularly attends the G20, and often plays a leading role on the global stage. Certain elements of the dictatorship had eyes on building a nuclear arsenal, but it never happened. Franco ultimately worried about the economic repercussions of being discovered, and Spaniards were themselves sceptical about the idea based on the experience in Palomares.

In terms of nuclear weapons, Spain is what Portela describes as a ‘de-proliferation’ state – in other words, a country that aspired to have nuclear bombs but reversed it.

It doesn’t look like changing anytime soon either. A survey in 2021 showed that Spain had the highest level of support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, with a massive 89 percent majority.

READ ALSO: Why is Spain not in the G20 (but is always invited)?

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