Wolves are howling in the Catalan Pyrenees once again, after a century’s absence. Although the first visitors started to arrive 25 years ago, this is different. These wolves are a family, two adults and three cubs. The pack in question is being protected from prying eyes – and guns – by the authorities. It lives somewhere above Girona in the foothills at the eastern end of the mountains, in Catalonia (NE Spain).[i]
The wolf. A magnificent animal, independent, untamed. A part of that wild nature we have never quite managed to control, with its own rules and imperatives.
“The howl of the wolf,” said Félix Rodrígues de la Fuente, “is one of the most impressive sounds produced by any living animal”.[ii] Félix was the equivalent of David Attenborough in Spain in the 1960s. At that time wolves were still despised by society in general. Félix would go on to change that.
The wolf. It fears us, but we fear it too. Yes, we fear being killed, but we fear more being killed and eaten, reduced to mere food. It is a very primitive fear. In continental Europe, you are more likely to be killed by a cow protecting her calf, a stag or a wild boar, but they don’t frighten us to anywhere near the same extent. The prospect of being eaten claims a special horror.
The fear of wolves is installed in us from an early age, even now, when children only ever see wild animals on screen. Witness Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, and, more sinisterly, The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Yet, that ancestral fear can be overcome, as an incident from Félix’s own childhood demonstrates. Félix was the grandson of a shepherd and well versed in the reality of sheep killed by wolves. When he was invited to participate in a wolf hunt at the age of ten, he thought he would see a cruel, bloody animal. The Devil incarnate, as he later wrote. But when he focused his binoculars, he saw a noble face, serene, intelligent. He leapt up, knowing that his action would save the animal. The wolf saw him and ran away.[iii] Félix’s binoculars could see, he said, ‘into the soul of the wolf’.
After his dramatic conversion, Félix would spend his adult life trying to change other people’s attitudes. He prompted a change in Spanish law, giving wolves protection during the breeding season. Their continuing presence in NW Spain, his homeland, is a direct legacy.
***
But the wolves in the Catalan Pyrenees, haven’t come from there. They have come through France. One has central European roots, but most of them have Italian ancestry. Wolves can disperse for hundreds of kilometres, see Adam Weymouth’s Lone Wolf.
The first male arrived in 2000, with a female identified in 2010.[iv] But no couples formed. Then in January 2024 another female was identified. By May, a male was seen in the same zone, but they only coupled up in December. The cubs were born earlier this year and are now following their parents as they patrol their territory.
When Félix was young, wolves were universally hated. Even people who loved animals, thought they were bad. The eminent biologist Joan Baptista Aguilar-Amat writing in 1924 dismissed them: ‘The Catalan wolf, now thankfully almost eradicated, is classified as the sub-species signatus.’[v] No 21st-century biologist would use the term ‘thankfully’.
How attitudes have changed…
See also Steve Cracknell The Implausible Rewilding of the Pyrenees.
Photos: Agents Rurals de Catalonia
[i] https://govern.cat/salapremsa/notes-premsa/760572/detectada-primera-llopada-cadells-catalunya-100-anys.
[ii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEDCjJ0vkWk.
[iii] eneagramadelapersonalidad.com/2015/11/03/analisis-del-estilo-de-personalidad-de-felix-rodriguez-de-la-fuente.
[iv] https://www.ferus.fr/actualite/une-louve-localisee-en-catalogne-pour-la-premiere-fois-depuis-80-ans
[v] Grabulosa, I 1987 ‘Història i llegenda del llop a les comarques gironines’, Revista de Girona 123, 60–65. raco.cat/index.php/RevistaGirona/article/view/85894.