Estimates of the total illegal kill are hard to make, obviously, but biologists feel it pushes the true number of wolves taken by humans up to 500 to 700. It is a large number, perhaps larger than the recruitment of young every year. Most hunters believe they are defending livestock against the depredations of a fearsome carnivore. About 75 percent of this loss occurs in the far northern autonomies of Cantabria and Asturias, where living conditions are quite different from those of the agricultural flatland. Wolves in the mountains prey on roe deer, red deer, wild boar and rabbits.
Some packs survive almost exclusively on livestock.
For Barrientos, however, these statistics prove that the virulent hatred toward the wolf runs to much deeper psychological levels than is suggested by an economic problem. In all of Spain's wolf range, Barrientos says, wolf depredations account for only 2.5 percent of the total value of the livestock industry. In this domesticated landscape, sheep never graze unattended. They are accompanied by a shepherd and several dogs. The shepherd may well tote a rifle.