About Iberian Wolves

The Iberian Wolf is known locally as Lobo and they are a subspecies of the Gray Wolf that inhabited the forrest and plains of North Portugal and North-Western Spain.

Features

The Iberian wolf is different from the more common Eurasian Wolf with it's thinner build, white marks on the upper lips, dark marks on the tail and a pair of dark marks on its front legs which give it is subspecies name, signatus (marked).

Males can weigh up to 40 kilograms, females usually weigh aroung 10kg less at 30 kilograms. An adult wolf can measure 140cm from nose to tail tip and its about 70-80 cm tall.

History

In the 20th Century, the Iberian Wolf occupied almost all of the Iberian Peninsula. Sadly though in that period the wolf population started to move from east to west and south to north with numbers decreasing due to human persecution. Iberian wolves were still present across Portugal in the 1930s, appearing on coastlands and near Lisbon. However through the 1960s to 1980s saw a alarming regression of Iberian wolf, through direct persecution and major changes in their habitat and availability of prey.

At Present

In Portugal, specific legislation has fully protected wolves since the 1990s. This law makes it illigal to capture or kill a wolf, destroy or disturb its habitat. Also the Iberian Wolf is listed as "Endangered" in the Portuguese Red Data Book.

Grupo Lobo

GRUPO LOBO is an independent non-profit NGO founded in 1985. Grupo Lobo works toward the conservation of the wolf and the wolves' habitat in Portugal, where the wolf population has been declining fast for many decades. At present Grupo Lobo has 1250 portuguese and foreign members.

Grupo Lobo owes its existence to the necessity of spreading the real facts about the wolf. For a long time man has habitually looked upon this predator as a threat or a punishment of humankind. Although this superannuated view has now been proved to be entirely erroneous, the real truth about the wolf is still slow to get through to all people.

The Grupo Lobo activities are part of a dynamic process involving further research on the wolf as well as spreading the scientifically proven facts to the general public.

The wolf is one of those species whose area of distribution has substantially declined in all parts of the globe. We shall have to take positive and concrete action, and act quickly and efficiently, if we want to avoid the very real danger of wolf extinction.

Grupo Lobo has initiated a conservation strategy that is able to do just that.