Demand for greater protection of Iberian wolf from environmental and animal welfare groups in Spain

Spanish environmental and animal rights organisations have called a demonstration for 22 June to demand strict protection for the Iberian wolf and to reject the "extremely serious legal setback" approved by the Congreso de los Diputados (Spanish parliament's lower house) after allowing the species to be hunted again.

The demonstration will start at 12.30pm at Madrid's Atocha train station and will go through the city centre under the slogan "wolf alive and protected" in defence of a species that is "key to the balance" of the peninsula's ecosystems.

The protest is being organised by Ecologistas en Acción, Grupo Lobo Asturias and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), among others, while more than fifty other organisations support the initiative, according to a statement given by the organisation AnimaNaturalis.

The protest will denounce the "extremely serious precedent" of modifying environmental regulations "by means of sectoral pressure, robbing civil society of any participation".

"The wolf is not vermin, it is everyone's natural heritage," said the director of AnimaNaturalis, Aïda Gascón, who believes "the wolf should return to the special protection list (Lespre) and that conservation plans based on science and effective coexistence programmes should be implemented".