Release the Hounds! (In a National Park??)

One of my greatest joys is being able to tell a story, to document something that's happened from start to finish. Sometimes it takes years to get the story. And then there are those rare moments when you see something unfolding and you have your camera ready, and you just get the story.

That said...

One of my greatest frustrations about Blogger is the way it shrinks my photos. If you click on a photo it'll give you blown-up versions of all of them. And trust me, for this post, you're gonna need to click on photos. Promise me you will. Because all this happened at a great distance, and the light was terrible, as it usually is, and I was excited, as I usually am. 

While watching the griffons, some of them spooked from their perches on the mountainside. From across the river, on the other side of the mountain, we heard gunshots and men yelling. And then we heard the chilling sound of dogs baying. Lots of dogs. 

Our unbelieving eyes discerned a pack of particolored dogs literally pouring down the flank of the mountain where the vultures perched. This seemed a very odd thing to be happening in a national park,  close to the Christmas holiday. Or anytime. What is a huge pack of dogs doing in a national park where threatened birds are nesting? 

Something in the dogs' appearance pricked at my memory. Hounds. Very fast, very lean, greyhound like forms. Sight hounds. I've got it! They're Ibizan hounds!

I've blown up a small section of my photo here so you can see what I'm talking about--the red-tan and white, graceful forms of what I believe to be Ibizan hounds. Bang! Bang! Yahhh! Still the human voices rang through the dehesa (oak forest).

As you know, I love to see a dog doing its job. I can see red trackers on these dogs' collars, which tells me they are valued animals, set out on a hunt on purpose.

I've done a little reading on Ibizan hounds. They're sight hounds who are likely little diferent from their original form of several thousand years ago. The breed, also called Podenco Ibicenco or Balaeric Dog, is derived from the pariah dogs brought from Egypt to the island of Ibiza off Spain's coast, by Phoenician traders. Because they were isolated on Ibiza, they have remained virtually unchanged for several thousand years. Seeing one is like looking at a heiroglyph!

 Once again, that antiquity thing, only this time it's expressed in flesh. In beautiful dogs. They're similar to Pharoah hounds. Here's a photo from Seattle Purebred Dogs/Shutterstock that I grabbed off the Net. Egad they're lovely animals. Unless you're an animal--any animal-- trying to live its life in Monfragüe National Park when they're loosed...I would not want to be trying to outrun this hound.

All this--what ARE those dogs?? Why are they hunting in a pack in a national park? What about the vultures? What about the Iberian lynx that are supposed live here??  is running through my head as I am striving to get photos of the little river of hounds pouring down the steep flank of the mountain.

 And as I'm shooting photos I hear a sharp clattering on the steep rocky riverbank, on the far side, below where the hounds are coursing. What in the Sam Hill? It's hooves on rock!

Through my lens, I can see it is a beautiful Iberian deer, a stag, and he's running for his very life. Into the frigid river he plunges, without hesitation.

And he begins to swim.

Who can blame him, as the shots and yells ring out behind him? As the hounds get ever closer?

Liam, Phoebe and I watch and marvel as he swims, slender legs churning underwater, being swept by the current, but making headway nonetheless.
Animals and birds continually do things I cannot even contemplate. Heroic, impossible things.

All told, by the timestamps on my photos, it took him about eight minutes to make the crossing. You can be sure it felt like forever to us. I'd have drowned in the first 50 feet.

 Liam ran down the observation walk to get a better perspective on the stag when he came out--I was blocked by trees--and yelled to me to hurry over. I hugged my big camera and ran over as fast as I could, and managed to get him just as he emerged from the river. Hooray! He made it!

A beautiful stag lives to see another day. I shared my photos with the kind Belgian birder who showed us the griffon nest. Our respective situational awareness and sharing wound up benefiting us all.

 I am exhilarated, having caught the hunters and the hunted, and seen a magnificent stag escape to safety. But I am also angry to have witnessed this in a national park. What is the meaning of a park, anyway, if this kind of indiscriminate hunting still goes on here?

Monfragüe is home not only to the griffons, black vultures and black storks, but to a few Iberian lynx, known to be one of the most critically endangered felines in the world.  Little wonder, given the amount of predator "control"  that goes on in Spain.

Lynx ex situ (i.e. captive) CNRLI/ICNF, taken from SmithsonianMagazine.com

Apparently this hunting with dogs is legal in the park. Let that sink in for a bit. Though lynx were legally protected in Spain in 1973, they are still being shot. And snaring and trapping goes on. Coursing with hounds is about the most indiscriminate kind of hunting one could do, and I understand that a radio-collared Iberian lynx was recently run out of Monfragüe by hounds. Great. Forced out of the habitat set aside for it. Well, it's not protected in the park, either, with this kind of hunting going on.

Our thrilling chase and escape story ends on a somber note. How could the Spanish government possibly justify such activities within a national park? 

Well, we don't set the best example for anyone to follow, with our Lands of Many Uses. Cattle grazing, clearcutting and oil/gas exploration and drilling, anyone?  

On a more hopeful note, here's an October 2019 article from Smithsonian that cites a spectacularly successful captive breeding and release program for Iberian lynx that has brought their numbers from around 100 to more than 700 animals since 2002! Cats do love to breed, and that is working in their favor, thank goodness!

Lynx ex situ (i.e. captive) CNRLI/ICNF, taken from SmithsonianMagazine.com

 Lynx have been reintroduced to an area about 7x the size of their shrunken range at the start of conservation efforts. Furthermore, their survival percentages once released have far exceeded expectations. Let's hear it for an endangered cat that is doing everything it can to stay with the living,

Ibizan hounds, yahoos with guns and all. 

Lynx ex situ (i.e. captive) CNRLI/ICNF, taken from SmithsonianMagazine.com

Just look at that coat pattern! What a beautiful beast! And so very different from our Canada lynx. A lot bobcattier.

Read about the heartening rebound of Iberian lynx at Smithsonian Magazine's site.

I was so excited to have documented both the hunt and the stag's escape that I pretty much grinned and jabbered for the rest of the afternoon. Liam would lean over and ask, "So...did you get the pictures, Ma?" And then the kids would both laugh at me.

Yes I did, punk. And I got a few of you, too. I like this one with the landscape lines all converging on your head, like you're having a mind-blowing moment amidst the lichens.