BBC (9/8/2024)
“My two favourite animals are sheep and wolves,” says Miguel Afonso as he looks over his flock of 200 sheep bleating and grazing on the gently rolling hills surrounding the village of Rio de Onor in northeastern Portugal. Holding his sturdy crook, the 34-year-old shepherd doesn’t see his love for wolves as inconsistent with his work. In the region of Montesinho, shepherds, sheep and wolves have coexisted for centuries.
“Wolves have caused me no trouble,” says Afonso while patting one of his six guard dogs, which protect his flock from attacks. “The wolves are actually helping me because they are hunting deer and boar, which damage my chestnut and grain plantations.”
Declared a protected area in 1979, the plateaus, mountain ranges and valleys of Montesinho in northern Portugal have long been a refuge for the Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus), an endangered subspecies of the European grey wolf. Connectivity with packs across the border in Spain and the availability of wild prey between the trees and meandering rivers have helped maintain stable wolf populations in this region.
“I’ve seen many wolves here, and I’ve seen them hunt deer,” says Afonso. “Once I was lucky to see what very few people have seen: I saw 14 wolves together. I thought it was impossible.”
In Portugal, wolves have been strictly protected by national law since 1988. Once numerous across the country, wolf populations have declined over the last century as they suffered habitat loss, the disappearance of prey species and conflict with humans. Today, only an estimated 300 wolves in 50-60 packs remain in Portugal’s northern and central highlands, in less than a third of their original range.
Hunted by humans and deprived of their habitats, wolves vanished from most of Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries, with some remnant populations surviving in Southern and Eastern Europe. Stricter legislation, successful conservation projects and rural abandonment have led to a comeback of these predators across the continent in recent years. But as wolf populations have grown, so have conflicts with human populations.
According to data gathered by the European Union (EU), wolves kill about 65,500 livestock each year, the majority being sheep. Considering there are an estimated 60 million sheep in the EU, the level of wolf predation represents an annual killing of 0.065%. While on a large scale, the impact of wolves on livestock is minimal, the depredations have led to an escalation in human-wildlife conflicts recently in countries such as Germany.
Last year, the European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen called for a downgrading of wolf protections in Europe. “The concentration of wolf packs in some European regions has become a real danger for livestock,” she said. One year before, a wolf had killed Von der Leyen’s pony in Germany’s Lower Saxony.
The proposal to downgrade the wolf’s protection status was welcomed by hunting and farming associations that have long advocated for changes in legislation to make it easier for wolves to be killed in the name of protecting livestock. The European Commission is still evaluating the proposal.
Conservationists worry the move could threaten the species’ survival in the continent. Even though wolf populations are recovering, their status is still far from favourable. According to the IUCN, six of the nine transboundary wolf populations in the EU are categorised as vulnerable or near-threatened.
“Ursula Von der Leyen’s pony was eaten, but this shouldn’t lead to revenge,” says Bruno Arrojado, a wolf advocate and founder of Plataforma Lobo Ibérico [Iberian Wolf Platform]. The organisation aims to improve knowledge about wolves and to raise awareness about the importance of protecting this threatened predator.
For Arrojado, who has been visiting Montesinho to monitor wolves and talk to shepherds for years, the main problem is that in many regions in Europe people no longer know how to live alongside wolves. “Montesinho could be an example of how we can coexist. There is some predation on domestic animals, but we don’t see a major conflict here because people know how to use ancestral methods of coexistence with wolves,” he says.
A study published in 2020 found the local population in Montesinho had either a neutral or positive opinion towards wolves. Unlike other regions in Europe where hostility to wolves is rising, most of the residents surveyed didn’t perceive the wolf as a threat because of the low levels of livestock predation and the region’s long history of coexistence with wolves.
“This region has 40% of Portugal’s wolf population, but only 5% of attacks on domestic animals,” says José Rosa, the head of northern forest management at the Portuguese Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF). Rosa explains the statistics – which come from ICNF’s own research – are due to the high diversity and density of wild prey, but also because livestock is guarded by shepherds and dogs.
“There are countries where the wolf is expanding in areas where habits of coexistence have been lost,” says Sílvia Ribeiro, a biologist with wolf conservation non-governmental organisation Grupo Lobo, which has a programme to promote the use of local guarding dog breeds traditionally valued for their protective instinct and ability to bond with the herds under their care.
According to Ribeiro, the continuous presence of wolves has helped maintain Montesinho’s traditional methods of preventing attacks, such as guard dogs, fences and shepherding. Studies have shown that areas with continuous wolf presence tend to experience lower depredation levels compared to regions where predators disappeared and then returned in the last decades.
While wolf attacks on livestock are influenced by the abundance of wild prey and the landscape features, protection measures can be very effective. According to research by the European Commission-funded Life Coex research project, prevention methods can result in a significant reduction of attacks on livestock: up to 61% with guard dogs, and up to 100% with fixed enclosures.
Protecting livestock is particularly challenging in areas where wild prey is scarce, making wolves dependent on domestic animals as a source of food. So restoring habitats to increase the availability of natural prey could also be an effective measure to prevent attacks.
Meanwhile, scientific research has shown that the culling and hunting of wolves is usually ineffective and can even be counterproductive in reducing attacks on livestock, unless it is carried out on a large scale – which could compromise the viability of wolf populations. Research suggests that disrupting healthy packs by shooting wolves might lead to higher levels of livestock predation because lone wolves lack the support of a pack to hunt wild prey and are more likely to attack smaller animals like sheep.
Afonso describes the only time a wolf killed one of his sheep as an “oversight, not an attack” since he was not taking enough precautions to protect his livestock. Back then, he only had two dogs, who couldn’t keep up with all the sheep. Now, his six guard dogs are always on the lookout, sniffing for signs of trouble and barking to scare the wolves away. Afonso always accompanies his sheep as they graze during the day and fences them in at night.
“If we have enough dogs and fences in good conditions, there are no attacks,” he says. But the costs of implementing these livestock protections are significant. Afonso spent about €4,000 ($4,360/ £3,375) to install fences to protect his flock. Considering the thin margins of the region’s small-scale farming, not all are able or willing to bear the costs of protecting livestock from wolf attacks.
A backbone, a few ribs and wool are spread across the meadow. “Wolves attacked recently,” says Alcina Corriça, as she points to the scattered remains of a sheep. “Vultures came to eat the leftovers.”
It is not the first time wolves have attacked Corriça’s livestock in Carragosa, a small village inside the Montesinho Nature Park. “Last year I lost six sheep. Then after a few days the wolves attacked one of my cows. They bit her throat,” says Corriça.
Yet despite the attacks, Corriça doesn’t hold grudges. “I’m not against the wolf. I love animals and I know we need to protect the wolves,” she says. “But it’s very hard when there are these big attacks. It’s very hard to see the animals we raised with such care torn apart.”
Corriça’s family owns 600 sheep, 80 cows and eight goats. Her two guard dogs can’t watch all the animals, and with her low profit margins, she has been unable to invest in fences to protect her livestock from wolves.
“I never received compensation for the attacks because there are rules to be compensated. We have to be with the animals all the time, and I am unable to,” she says.
European guidelines for agricultural aid allow EU members to grant compensation to farmers for damages caused by wolves. In Portugal, however, the highly bureaucratic process excludes many farmers like Corriça, who are unable to receive the benefits because they don’t meet all the requirements. “We need more support. I’m protecting the wolves. I think they need to be protected, but the farmers also need support,” says Corriça. The Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests, the entity responsible for payments, did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
For Jorge Laranjinha, president of the local association of sheep breeders, the compensation offered for wolf attacks is not enough to cover farmers’ losses. “The payments arrive late, and the amount is negligible. The compensation is based on the global market prices, which vary, but the animals of our local breed are much more valuable,” he says.
“If farmers are properly compensated and protected there will be less conflict,” argues Laranjinha, adding that there needs to be more substantial support for livestock farmers. Portuguese breeders can apply for benefits to cover the recurring costs of keeping guard dogs, but receive no financial support to install protective fences.
Despite the challenges and losses that farmers face, Laranjinha says Montesinho is still one of the areas where the wolf is more easily tolerated. “We have to accept the wolf,” he says. “It has always been here, we have always coexisted with wolves. It has to be here because it’s part of the ecosystem.”
Research has shown that wolves play a crucial role in maintaining the balance of ecosystems. By controlling the foraging behaviour and numbers of herbivores through predation, wolves help promote the growth of trees, benefiting other animal and plant species and restoring natural processes.
The presence of wolves can also attract tourists and generate income for rural communities. The Sanabria area in Spain, which neighbours Montesinho and is home to one of the densest wolf populations in Western Europe, has become a popular wolf-watching destination. In Montesinho, wolf tourism is also starting to grow, with some local businesses offering wolf-themed tours.
“Wolf tourism is important, but it needs to benefit the people who are most affected by the presence of the wolf, so we need to make sure farmers are also involved,” says Ribeiro.
Arrojado, the wolf advocate who lives in Lisbon, often spends his holidays in the Montesinho Nature Park searching for wildlife with his family. He is eager to show wolves and deer to his nine-year-old daughter, teaching her about the importance of biodiversity and fostering a sense of wonder and responsibility towards the environment. He says Montesinho’s model of coexistence demonstrates “there is space for all of us”.
BBC Future Planet
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240808-in-portugal-shepherds-coexist-with-wolves
Photo courtesy of Bruno Arrojado / Plataforma Lobo