Far from being a mere administrative procedure, one more sale, the acquisition by the Segura Hydrographic Confederation of the La Raja estate, a hunting reserve inserted in the El Hondo Natural Park – shared by Elx and Crevillent – means a important progress in the safeguarding of one of the most endangered birds in Europe: the Gray Teal.
With an area of ??90 hectares, the property acquired by the managing body of the Segura basin was the largest waterfowl hunting reserve in the protected area. Its acquisition is added to another produced in the Espigar lagoons, another ancient adjacent hunting reserve, recently purchased by the Association of Southeast Naturalists and the Spanish Society of Ornithology.
This is not about operations, but rather a coordinated strategy within the Gray Teal Life Project. In total, there are 120 hectares of wetlands where waterfowl hunting has been eradicated, considered by experts to be one of the main causes of the gray teal being on the brink of extinction in the south of Alicante, its preferred habitat in the region. Iberian Peninsula, next to the Guadalquivir marshes.
After this operation, hunting for waterfowl in the El Hondo Natural Park is limited to three hunting reserves located in the northern area of ??this protected area. Environmental organizations such as the Association of Friends of the Southern Wetlands (AHSA) have repeatedly asked the Generalitat Valenciana to stop authorizing night hunting in these reserves. An appeal presented by this organization before the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community against the authorization of nocturnal hunting of waterfowl in the south of Alicante, seeks to end this practice.
The president of the Segura Hydrographic Confederation, Mario Urrea, formalized the signature for the acquisition of the La Raja farm, in Crevillent, on the western edge of the El Hondo natural park. The total area is 90.18 hectares classified as scrubland and unproductive. The farm is made up of two large brackish water lagoon areas, is part of the Natura 2000 Network and has water use rights. The value of the land amounts to 865,866 euros.
According to sources from the Confederation, “the acquired surface constitutes an exceptional and irreplaceable habitat for the development of the gray teal, which justifies the special suitability of the property and with it, the application of the direct acquisition procedure established in the Law.”
The CHS adds another surface for the recovery of threatened species, as it did previously in other locations in the Segura Demarcation, such as the Saladares del Guadalentín, the lagoon of the Rambla de Las Moreras (both in the province of Murcia) or the park native of El Hondo (Alicante).
