What are the current legal protections for bears and wolves in Spain?
Bears have the highest possible grade of protection. European directives dictate that bear habitat must also be strictly protected. Bears are considered a priority conservation species. There are only two or three other species in Spain which have the same degree of legal protection, for example the Iberian lynx or the Monk seal. As well as the hunting of bears being strictly forbidden, the areas they inhabit all have some degree of protection in the form of natural parks or similar bodies. The European Union has assigned large sums of money to bear conservation. Cantabrian bears have been awarded a sum of one thousand million pesetas towards their protection, to be spent over two or three years. That is a lot of money although it has to be said that a large portion has been miss-spent. Also a sum of some three or four hundred million has been assigned to bear conservation in the Pyrenees – That is quite a few million per head! Wolves, on the other hand, are classed as game species. Th
