| Sumario: | A recent study conducted by Jorge Echegaray and Carles Vilà at the Doñana Biological Station in Seville, Spain, has revealed that feral dogs are often the culprits behind damage blamed on wolves. In Spain, where wolves have been reintroduced, about $2.3 million a year is paid to farmers to compensate for the damage to livestock allegedly done by wolves. However, in a study of feces samples, Echegaray and Vila discovered only a single wolf sample with any signs of sheep in it, compared to 14 samples of dog feces containing sheep remains. Although Echegaray and Vilà did not address the question of whether farmers truly believe that wolves are behind livestock attacks, they were able to estimate the number of wolves in the area and calculate that local farmers receive more than $3,000 annually for each wolf.
|
|---|