Cantabrian mountains

Cangas de Narcea, Alto Sil Degana

It covers a mountain range with an elevation up to 2,000 m and dense forest in many areas. Habitat is a mixture of deciduous forest and natural and man made grasslands which provide a very good habitat for red deer and wild boar. The mountainous landscape provides very good habitat for chamois.

Cangas de Narcea, Alto Sil Degana

Natural Park of Somiedo

The landscape is characterized by a high mountain range, up to 2.200 m, with dense forest in many areas.

Natural park of Somiedo

Riaño Regional Park

Habitat is a mixture of deciduous forest and natural and man made grasslands which provide a very good habitat for Red deer, Wild boar and for Mountain goats as well. The northern part is a national park, where hunting is not allowed. The southern part consists of a natural park (former national game reserve). Very restricted hunting is allowed, law enforcement is good.

Riano regional park

Fuentes Carrionas Natural Park (Palencia)

abitat is a mixture of deciduous forest and natural and man made grasslands which provide a very good habitat for red deer and wild boar. It has a mountain range that has an elevation up to 2,400 m.

Fuentes Carrionas natural park

The Cantabrian Mountains are located in the region of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and Castilla y León.

Cantabria is the most northern province of Spain with the Cantabrian mountains forming a climate barriere from the Basque region to Galicia. The area includes several protected areas for large herbivores. The whole mountain range covers more than 1000000 ha.

The Cantabrian Mountains should be considered as one hot spot but depending on the nature of future projects and regarding the particular local circumstances one area can be more suitable than others. Because of the high possibility of genetic transfer between the separated large herbivore populations in this paper we consider the four areas as one hotspot, although they are locally separated. The four areas are Alto Sil-Degana, the Natural Park of Somiedo, Fuentes Carrionas Natural Park and Riaño Regional Park.

Most parts of the Cantabrian Mountains have hunting areas managed by hunters themselves. Fuentes Carrionas, Somiedo and Riaño are hunting reserves managed by regional government.

• Law enforcement works quite well although there is some illegal hunting, but it does not have any obvious impact on large herbivores species.
• The northern part has a National Game Reserve with very restricted hunting. Law enforcement is very good. No supplementary feeding is going on.
• The natural park serves mainly for brown bear conservation. A zonation excludes some areas to tourists use. Hunting is allowed but very restricted. Illegal hunting is rare because law enforcement is very good.
• The natural park is a former National Game Reserve with restricted hunting exploitation.

• Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica: extinct
• Capra pyrenaica hispanica: extinct
• Capra pyrenaica victoriae: rare

Capra pyrenaica victoriae has recently been reintroduced to this area after more than a century of absence.

• Hotspots for large herbivores, 2001