The Junta de Castilla y León assures that the deer killed in Linarejos (Zamora) is a “completely different” specimen from Carlitos, a deer that regularly visited the town and for which the neighbors have asked in a campaign to be saved from hunting.
The regional executive bases this statement on the data provided by agents and environmental guards and confirmed by the director of the Sierra de la Culebra Hunting Reserve in Zamora, contrary to what was assured by the residents of Linarejos, who claim that Carlitos would have been shot down this week.
“The information recently disseminated about the death of Carlitos is false and unfounded. The Board wants to emphatically emphasize that Carlitos, the deer in question, is not in danger this year and will not be hunted,” reads the statement published this Wednesday.
The Board clarifies that “the killed specimen is a deer whose hunting was contemplated in the annual hunting plan of the Regional Hunting Reserve, one of the most emblematic hunting and conservation areas in Spain, where some of the best populations are located. deer and wolf of Spain”.
Furthermore, remember that these reserves “are located in protected areas where hunting is compatible with the conservation of species, always giving priority to conservation.”
In statements to Efe, the neighbors maintained that the killed deer was Carlitos because of the marks it had on its ears and body, seen in some photographs of an animal, since they could not compare other features such as the antlers or a scar it had on one of the legs, because the animal was dismembered and without its horns or part of its head.
The fear of the residents of Linarejos that Carlitos would be shot led them last week to start collecting signatures via the Internet for his pardon, which collected more than 54,000 signatures in seven days.
This campaign led the territorial delegate of the Junta de Castilla y León in Zamora, Leticia García, to recognize that it was a “huntable” deer and to warn of the danger that approaching it and any other specimen during the rutting season could pose, as is the actual.
After learning of the denial of the Board’s statement, the resident of the area and coordinator of Ecologists in Action of Zamora, Julio Fernández, has indicated in statements to Efe that the important thing is not whether the specimen killed on Tuesday was Carlitos or not, but how hunting is managed in the reserve during the rut season and has asked the Department of the Environment to demonstrate with photos that it is not that specimen.