The Iberian wolf recovers reaching 297 packs, according to the last census. No sightings of wolves recorded in Aigüestortes National Park for over a century.
A hidden camera placed in the Aigüestortes National Park in the Vall de Boí (Lleida), captured the first image of an Iberian wolf there in the last century.
Rural agents are searching for DNA samples throughout the Vall de Boí in the high Pyrenees to determine the animals’ origin.
Lucky find
The cameras were in place to monitor fauna in the park. Triggered by movement, the cameras have detected the presence of bears on other occasions.
Wolves have been identified in the Alta Ribagorza aragonese. Now experts want to determine whether the image is of the same specimen or not.
The Generalitat’s Department of the Environment explained that until they have genetic samples, they will not know the wolf’s origin.
More about the Iberian wolf
The Iberian wolf is a subspecies of the grey wolf. It lives in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, which includes northern Portugal and northwestern Spain. They form the largest wolf population in Western Europe.
In order to control the population and prevent damage to livestock, Iberian wolves are the only Western European subspecies of wolf whose hunting remains legal. Nevertheless, the authorities hand out very few hunting permits and strictly north of the Douro river in Spain.
