"The Barbary sheep: when eradication precedes debate"

OPINION | Paula Dólera, Secretary of the Animalist Association Els Poets de Pedreguer, and Carlos Javier Sapena Martín, President of the Association for the Defense of Herbivores against Fires (ADHIF)

The death of the Barbary sheep shot a few days ago in Dénia It reopens the scientific and ethical debate on the management of a species subjected in the Valencian Community to one of the most intense eradication policies in Spain.

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There are events whose importance lies not only in what happens, but in the ease with which we are able to accept them. The death of the Barbary sheep shot in Dénia belongs to that category of events that reveal something deeper than a simple incident with wildlife. They reveal a way of seeing the world.

For more than 24 hours, the Barbary sheep wandered disoriented through the town of Dénia. It moved about aimlessly, searching for a way out in an environment it couldn't understand. It wasn't a predator. It wasn't displaying aggressive behavior. It was a wild herbivore out of place, trapped between fear and bewilderment. Its escape ended with a gunshot.

The case of Dénia is not an exception. It represents the moment when a reality silenced for years burst into the public sphere. While hundreds of Barbary sheep are culled each season in the Valencian Community, generally in public forests, natural areas, protected landscapes, and other lands where the administration carries out its control programs, this animal appeared where no one could look away. It wandered disoriented among people who witnessed its escape and, ultimately, its death. And that was precisely what made this case different: for once, the society he was able to witness the consequences of a political which is usually carried out out of sight and, all too often, also out of the public debate.

And when something hidden becomes visible, the questions should also become visible.

The first issue affects the very scientific basis upon which much of current policy is founded. The fundamental question is whether this policy truly reflects the best available scientific knowledge or whether, on the contrary, it has become a virtually automatic response.

The inclusion of the Barbary sheep in the Spanish Catalogue of Invasive Alien Species has steered its management towards control and eradication policies. This legal framework does not, however, exempt the government from an essential obligation: that every irreversible decision be based on the best available scientific evidence and a criterion of proportionality. To equate this classification with absolute scientific consensus is to oversimplify a debate that is far from over.

For this very reason, several researchers have been advocating for years the need to review the management of the Barbary sheep in light of the scientific knowledge accumulated over the last few decades. Among them is Jorge Cassinello, a researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and one of the world's leading experts on this species. Researchers such as Sergio Enguía and Alfonso San Miguel Ayanz have also expressed similar views, proposing adaptive management models based on the assessment of each territory rather than on uniform solutions.

They are not arguing that the Barbary sheep should not be managed. What they question is that eradication has become, in many cases, the priority objective before even considering other management strategies.

Science doesn't advance through immutable certainties. It advances by revising hypotheses, incorporating new data, and correcting its own conclusions. Public administration should do the same.

Another paradox adds to this scientific debate. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Nature (IUCN) maintains the Barbary sheep listed as a Vulnerable species in its natural distribution area of ​​North Africa.

There is also an economic dimension that is rarely discussed. Although state and regional regulations on invasive alien species prohibit the commercialization of the Barbary sheep (*), for years hunting trips have been publicly advertised in the province of Alicante for up to 3.000 euros, offered by both private individuals and by... companies from the hunting sector, such as Hunty or CAZALICANTE. In view of the 1.379 Barbary sheep officially killed in Alicante during the 2024-2025 seasons, it is difficult to understand the silence of the Generalitat regarding an activity that could generate more than four million euros.

It is also worth remembering that the Barbary sheep never arrived on the Iberian Peninsula on its own. It was deliberately introduced by humans in 1970 in the Sierra Espuña mountains for hunting purposes. Its subsequent spread stems from that initial decision. Therefore, we are not dealing with a spontaneous invasion by nature, but rather with the consequences of human actions whose decisions continue to shape the debate on its management today.

It is paradoxical that the same animal that for decades was considered a hunting resource and generated economic activity is now presented exclusively as a problem whose solution seems to involve its systematic elimination.

Nor have all public administrations interpreted this issue in the same way. While the Valencian Community has opted for particularly intensive eradication policies, other autonomous communities have maintained more balanced management models, combining population control, hunting, and other management tools.

The official figures themselves reflect the intensity of this policy. During the period 2024-2025, 1.423 Barbary sheep were killed in the Valencian Community. Of these, 1.379 were in the province of Alicante alone, compared to 44 in Valencia and none in Castellón, according to data from the Third Vice-Presidency and Ministry of the Environment, Infrastructure, Territory and Recovery.

In contrast, other autonomous communities have opted for different approaches. The case of the Region of Murcia is particularly significant. Its Regional Advisory Council for Hunting and River Fishing recently analyzed the latest scientific studies on the status of this species with the aim of requesting the Ministry for Ecological Transition to remove the Barbary sheep from the list of invasive alien species and recognize it as a naturalized species. The proposal is based precisely on the reports prepared by Jorge Cassinello's team.

If science inevitably led to a single answer, there would hardly be such marked differences between administrations subject to the same legal framework.

Since 2007, the Association for the Defense of Herbivores Against Forest Fires (ADHIF) has been calling for a review of the classification and policies applied to the Barbary sheep. Their proposal does not consist of abandoning management altogether, but rather replacing systematic eradication with decisions based on the most recent scientific evidence, proportionality, adaptive management, and animal welfare.

That position may or may not be shared. What is difficult to justify is that a genuine scientific debate is practically ignored by public policy.

But this reality is not only scientific. It also raises ethical questions about how a society chooses to relate to wildlife.

Protecting biodiversity is an undeniable obligation, but so is questioning whether death should always be the first response. A society that aspires to relate ethically to animals should explore all available alternatives before considering the elimination of a life as an unavoidable option.

The Barbary sheep didn't choose to come here. It was brought here by human decisions. Today, human decisions also determine its future. The responsibility has never been the Barbary sheep's. It has been ours.

What happened in Dénia shouldn't be reduced to a specific discussion about a particular species, but should force us to seriously question the model of coexistence we are building with wildlife. Too often, the presence of animals is only tolerated as long as it doesn't disrupt our interests or our daily well-being; as soon as discomfort arises, immediate, rapid, and seemingly definitive management is demanded, as if conflicts with nature could be resolved without costs or side effects. This logic of urgency and simplification ignores the ecological and ethical consequences of our decisions and reveals a profoundly unbalanced relationship with the environment we share.

But the real problem is no longer just the Barbary sheep. It's the extraordinary ease with which a modern society accepts that death can become an administrative procedure. A legal classification is all it takes for us to stop seeing an animal and start seeing a file. A label is all it takes for questions that should accompany any final and cruel decision to disappear.

A truly civilized society is not one that resolves its conflicts with nature most quickly. It is one that refuses to accept that death can become, without much discussion, the easiest way to resolve them.

Article 64.3 of Law 42/2007, of December 13, on Natural Heritage and Biodiversity, states: “Inclusion in the Spanish Catalogue of Invasive Alien Species entails the general prohibition of possession, transport, trafficking and trade of live specimens, their remains or propagules that could survive or reproduce, including foreign trade.” Royal Decree 630/2013, of August 2, art. 7.1 (prohibition of possession, transport, trafficking and trade of catalogued species).

Article 4.1.b) of Decree 213/2009, of November 20, of the Consell, which approves measures for the control of invasive alien species in the Valencian Community, which prohibits the trade, trafficking or transfer of live specimens of the species included in its Annex I