wolf

the “wolf pack” robots with all kinds of autonomous weaponry

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China has turned robotics into a state issue. In the last five-year plan, the country made clear its total commitment to autonomous robots, agentic AIthe development of your semiconductor industry and 6G as the great ‘cloud’ to give life to Physical AI. Within the technological commitment, we already knew that robot dogs were of great importance. What we didn’t expect is that they already had packs of robodogs ready to go into action. And all this under a brain that makes them work like a swarm. Robowolves. The Asian giant has been performing simulations with these robot dogs armed. The advantage of these units is that the base is the same for all, but they can be customized so that they carry whatever is needed: from weapons to sensors of all kinds. Each one weighs about 70 kilos and can carry another 25 kilos, so the versatility when it comes to having ‘extras’ for attack, reconnaissance, transportation and supplies is maximum. And they can be operated remotely by humans, but the key to the Chinese system presented by the state channel CCTV (as stated SCMP) is that they can also be under the control of a central AI. Herd. We have already mentioned that one of China’s objectives is physical AI, AI being the software that controls – the brain – and the robot the hardware that has contact with the real world -the dog-. Within a show of force, television highlights operations such as “urban cleanup” in which a pack of ‘wolves’ operates through a shared detection network that acts as a collective brain. It is an autonomous mode and decision-making is joint within the group. As in a pack of flesh and blood wolves, each one has different roles. And they have names. ‘Shadow’ is the recognition, giving information about the situation to the rest of the group. ‘Polar’ is the one that offers logistical support and ‘Bloody’, as its name suggests, is the one that can carry weapons such as grenade launchers, missile launchers and automatic rifles. What’s scarier is that the group can automatically maneuver into tactical formations thanks to that swarm control system to surround targets, block them, and ultimately open fire. One of those responsible for researching the Atlas weapons system in China pointed out that these drones “understand” the intentions of others and can execute collaborative actions even in the absence of communication signals with the command. Utility? Operate in situations where satellite signals are not available. An example of one of the ‘Polar’ Limitations. Although it may seem like science fiction – and it is – these units are not perfect. The army itself has revealed on occasion that robodogs lack armor, so they are easily shot down even with light fire. They have recognized that the idea is no longer to achieve perfection, but to advance in the demonstration that they can replace human troops with robots, minimizing casualties in the event of open conflict. There is also something more underlying: as in a pack, the strength is not in the individual, but in operating together as CCTV claims these swarms of robots can do. And another limitation (and thank goodness) is that, although robots are capable of identifying and focusing on targets autonomously, they cannot attack without human confirmation. And a ‘Bloody’ show of strength. The reports shared by CCTV indicate that the algorithms of this system allow collaborative tasks to be carried out between different types of weapons. For example, coordinating attacks between ground and aerial drones, but also guiding laser weapons. One case is an algorithm that allows robots to prioritize targets, such as neutralizing the most threatening ones first, leaving less important targets aside. And Zhang Wei, a researcher at the China Electronics Technology Group corporation, pointed out that the goal is to achieve robots with “full autonomy on a large scale”, a scenario in which many different drones operate collaboratively without human intervention, achieving objectives and making decisions in complex missions autonomously. Total commitment to robotics. As always, you have to take anything that comes from any government with a grain of salt when talking about this type of thing, since (and even more so now) propaganda is super important. However, it is undeniable that China is betting heavily on the development of robotics and that these robowolves are not a render like the ‘space destroyer’ that they showed a few weeks ago. They are already carrying out simulated missions and we have seen them in other scenarios, such as in the daily life of different firefighting units. helping carry out reconnaissance missions and firefighting. And, deep down, I can’t get out of my head how cool these things were when we saw them in the movies and how scary it is when they seem to be one step away from becoming a reality. Image | CCTV/China In Xataka | China has asked Russia for an airborne battalion and training. That can only mean one thing: they are preparing a landing

Anthropic says Claude Mythos is too powerful to go public. The question is if this is nothing more than “the wolf is coming”

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Claude Mythos Preview It is the best AI model ever created. We don’t say it, Anthropic says it, but almost no one else can say it because only a select group of companies has access to said model. The cybersecurity capabilities of the model appear to be astonishingbut more and more experts say that although Mythos is better than its predecessors, it is not the revolutionary leap that Anthropic seems to propose. Is that way of launching the model just an effective way of creating hype? Beware the Anthropic speech. The well-known entrepreneur and analyst Gary Marcus recently gave three reasons why, according to him, the launch of Mythos is not as revolutionary as Anthropic wants us to see. I cited tweets from software engineers and cybersecurity experts who cast doubt on Anthropic’s claims. The company published a study on the capabilities of Claude Mythos Preview that seemed to make it an extraordinary tool for the field of cybersecurity, but at the same time it was so powerful that it could be very dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. Isn’t that a big deal? Among Claude Mythos’ achievements, Anthropic highlighted how he had found vulnerabilities in Firefox 147. But in reality many of the flaws were basically variations of the same two bugs. If you removed them from the equation, Mythos’ effectiveness rate at finding new exploits dropped a lot, even below Opus 4.6. Anthropic did not hide that fact, of course, but it makes this capacity, for example, not seem so striking. An X user also criticized the use of Cybench as a cybersecurity benchmark when Opus 4.6 almost completely surpassed it. For him, the choice of some of the Anthropic tests was debatable because they were not a challenge to current models. Other models can do the same. The co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face, Clement Delangue, stated that Mythos was no big deal. Their argument: they had used small, cheap open models, isolated the relevant code from some examples of the vulnerabilities found by Mythos, and they found the same problems which had already detected the Anthropic model. According to the Epoch Capabilities Index, which measures the capacity of AI models by combining several benchmarks, the leap that Mythos has taken is striking and “departs” from the progressive line of its predecessors. Source: Anthropic. Observer bias. But here it should be noted that in those analyzes they knew where to look because Mythos had already found those problems. We are dealing with observer bias, and in fact the Hugging Face document makes it clear that they even gave him specific clues such as “consider integer overflow”) to find those bugs. And on this observation, another one: Hugging Face does not say that a small model can replace Mythos on its own, but that it can be very good by giving it the appropriate code fragment. Mythos seems more capable of blindly complex security breaches, but it is a huge model and that is why it has greater capacity. Or what is the same: Mythos is better because it has the size, design and resources to be better. Fear, uncertainty, doubt? The language used by Anthropic in this advertisement could be considered to some extent a clear use of FUD (“Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt” -> “Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt”) as a marketing technique. It is a resource that has been seen in the past, and for example OpenAI already said in 2019—years before the launch of ChatGPT—that GPT-2 was too dangerous for a public launch. Obviously it wasn’t, but that certainly served to create expectation about the true capacity of the model. It’s better, but it may not be revolutionary. The results of the benchmarks that Anthropic published already made it clear that although there are very notable jumps in some tests, in others the evolution is much less striking. Claude Mythos was not the best at everything, and now analysts appear who contrast that data with other metrics. For example, with the Epoch Capabilities Index (ECI) from Epoch AI, the startup that has one of the most reputable benchmarks of the industry. And according to this index, Claude Mythos is above his rivals, but not for long. The wolf is coming. The truth is that the launch of Claude Mythos Preview has been really striking and the documents that accompanied that document tell us about a really capable AI model. The problem is that it is impossible to verify it because only a few companies have access to it and can test it. Without that public availability the only thing we can do is trust (or not) what Anthropic tells us, and that is the point: it is not clear that we should do it. The company is interested in us buying this discourse, obviously, but without an independent analysis it is impossible to verify these statements. In Xataka | Anthropic has become the darling of AI and has sought a partner to guarantee its future. It’s not the one we thought

While Spain does everything possible to preserve the Iberian wolf, one group has very different ideas: ranchers

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A few days ago, a six-year-old Iberian wolf named Raksha traveled from the Basabrere center in Lezaun (Navarra) to the Jerez de la Frontera Zoobotanical Center. A trip that aims enrich the captive breeding program started in 1995 in order to guarantee the conservation of the species. The problem is that it is being done at a time when ranchers are fighting against the presence of the wolf due to the damage it is causing. Wolf x-ray. To understand the conflict, you first have to look at the numbers. According to the last national censusSpain has 333 stable herds, which translates into about 1,600 to 1,700 individuals, and it is good news because it marks an increase of 12% compared to the previous census. Here the vast majority is concentrated north of the Duero River, although a clear trend of expansion is observed towards the south and east of the peninsula. The problem is that we are still quite far from reaching the 500 herds that can guarantee good genetic variability that allows them to survive. That is why the Government maintains until this March the classification of the wolf’s conservation status as “unfavorable.” The war in the countryside. If science is telling us that there is a need for wolves, livestock farmers affirm that there are plenty of them, and they see this due to the increase in attacks on livestock that has forced the State to inject 20 million euros annually for prevention measures with fences or mastiff dogs, as well as to compensate financially. However, organizations such as WWF denounce that management by the autonomous communities is deficient, with a lack of transparency and little progress compared to what is set out in the 2022 National Strategy. Lots of criticism. But these measures seem to be not enough for some, such as the Popular Party, which points out that in the province of Lugo, where more than 1,400 affected animals were registered, much more still needs to be done. The Xunta de Galicia itself also points out that right now the winners do not have state funds to be able to face these attacks. Although the tension is undoubtedly placed right now on the temporary inclusion of the wolf in the List of Wild Species under Special Protection Regime (LESPRE). Under this legal umbrella, any action of capture, disturbance, sale or destruction of the species’ habitat is prohibited. A legal pulse. If we look back, a few months ago various amendments and regulatory changes They allowed a partial departure of the wolf from LESPRE, authorizing controls based on hunting to mitigate economic damage. But in February 2026 a ruling from the Supreme Court turned the situation around 180 degreessince it tightened the requirements to authorize these extractions, obligatorily prioritizing non-lethal alternatives and drastically limiting hunting. This sentence has acted like gasoline in regions of northern Spain where ranchers report significant attacks on their animals, and that is why the autonomous communities threaten to report the Spanish government to the European Union for not acting on the regulation of this species. But what is clear is that the crossroads of the Iberian wolf in 2026 is the perfect reflection of a coexistence problem. While Raksha and other specimens in captivity ensure the genetic lifeline of the species, in the offices and meadows of northern Spain the formula that allows the wolf to howl without the rural world starting to tremble has not yet been found. Images | Arturo de Frias Marques In Xataka | We have managed to make the dire wolves return after 10,000 years of being extinct. The problem is that “come back” may not be the right word.

Canada now allows Chinese cars to be sold and the US believes they have opened the door to the wolf

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Canada is about to become the gateway of chinese manufacturers of electric cars to North America. BYD, Geely and Chery They have been preparing their landing for months in the country, and from Washington they are watching with great suspicion. What has happened? In January, Mark Carney’s Government closed a trade agreement with China that reduced tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 100% to 6.1%, in exchange for Beijing lowering tariffs on Canadian agricultural products such as rapeseed or lobsters. The agreement allows the entry of up to 49,000 Chinese electric cars per year, with the possibility of scaling up to 70,000 in five years. March 1, Ottawa opened the application process of import permits. Tensions. This decision comes amid trade tensions with the United States under the Trump administration, which has imposed tariffs on both Canada and China. “We take the world as it is, not as we would like it to be,” counted at that time Carney, with the intention of diversifying its alliances. Who arrives and how. According to the DSMA advisory firm, which is mediating between Chinese manufacturers and Canadian dealers, three brands lead the race: BYD, Geely and Chery. The three are working in parallel on the approval of vehicles, the construction of distribution networks and agreements with local financial partners. Jason Zhao, director of Asian market development at DSMA, estimates that the first cars could arrive at the end of 2026. It would look like this: BYD wants to open 20 dealerships in a year, starting in the Toronto area and then expanding to Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary, according to explained to The Globe and Mail Farid Ahmad, CEO of Dealer Solutions Mergers & Acquisitions. The brand is also studying the possibility of building its own production plant in the country, although, according to declared to Bloomberg a few weeks ago its executive vice president Stella Li, “no decision has been made yet.” Geely expects to soon receive certification from Canadian authorities for its vehicles, according to confirmed to Bloomberg Andy An, CEO of Zhejiang Geely Holding. The company already has some presence in North America through Volvo and Polestar, but Zeekr would be its first Chinese brand to reach the Canadian market. Cherry is hiring in Canada and has already registered several of its brands, including Omoda, Jaecoo and Exeed. In statements collected According to Automotive News Canada, the company stated that it is “evaluating avenues for future development, including alliances with local players,” although without confirming dates. The problem of times. Just because there is a trade agreement does not mean that the cars will arrive tomorrow. Stephen Beatty, industry consultant and former executive at Toyota Canada, counted to Automotive News Canada that, if starting from scratch, the homologation process can take “a year or more.” And the brands best positioned to be the first through the door are Tesla (which had already prepared its Shanghai factory to export to Canada in 2023) and Volvo and Polestar, which already operate in the Canadian market under a Chinese umbrella. Washington’s reaction. Jamieson Greer, United States Trade Representative, qualified the agreement “problematic” and warned that Canada might regret it. The issue raises concern in Washington, since if Chinese manufacturers manage to establish themselves in Canada, the US market (the great long-term objective) will be much closer. “The obvious end goal is all of North America,” counted Tu Le, managing director of Sino Auto Insights, in the middle. Between the lines. The United States maintains very high tariffs on Chinese cars and a ban on connectivity technology for Chinese-made vehicles, which has blocked any mass entry into its market. Canada, by opening its door, not only irritates Washington because of the direct commercial impact (about 49,000 cars are barely 3% of the Canadian market), but for what it represents: a precedent and a bridgehead. BYD, in fact, has already publicly ruled out trying to enter the US in the short term. Stella Li, speaking to Bloomberg, described the American market as a “complicated environment” and said that the brand is focused on other markets where it can replicate its successful model in Brazil. And now what. According to DSMA, large dealer groups in Canada they are divided: Half are actively looking to close an agreement with a Chinese brand, the other half are waiting to see how the situation evolves. The medium and small ones, on the other hand, are “all” interested, according to Zhao. Longer term, both DSMA and Sino Auto Insights estimate that between 15 and 20 Chinese manufacturers will end up operating in Canada. Cover image | Tom Carnegie and BYD In Xataka | What happens if you are in a self-driving taxi and someone wants to get into the car and attack you? Waymo’s response is not encouraging

Jensen Huang believes we have reached the “coming of the AI ​​wolf.” It is perfect for feeding a Tamagotchi

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Artificial intelligence has become a football league. There are divisions in which titles are pursued such as having the most powerful AIthe fastest, the most capable at a specific task either the most versatilebut the goal is to become champion of the Champions League, and that is the AGI. Although from the United States they do not stop talk about artificial general intelligence As something that is about to fall, it is a theory that suggests that, at some point, an AI will be achieved that will surpass humans in all areas of knowledge. For the NVIDIA CEO, that moment has already arrived. At the moment it’s… smoke. The AGI has already arrived. It has been in the podcast by Lex Fridman in which Jensen Huangboss of the company that is supporting the AI ​​industry, has pointed out that general artificial intelligence is already here. Fridman posed a question: Could an AI system establish, grow, and operate a $1 billion-plus technology company within five to twenty years?” Huang rephrased the question, stating that current AI systems are already capable of creating a viral web service that briefly generates $1 billion in revenue. That remains to be seen, but it is not the only one that Huang threw into the air. When Fridman asked if AGI is five, ten, fifteen or twenty years away, Huang responded with a resounding “I think it’s now. I think we’ve achieved AGI.” Well no. Friedman said that was going to raise some eyebrows, and it took Huang less time than ChatGPT to agree with you if you tell him something isn’t right to qualify his words. Much of the conversation focused on OpenClaw platform, the open source agentic AI framework that has become the pearl of the industry and where everyone wants to have something to say. In the article of The Verge point out the example of the Tamagotchi and how Huang points out that people can use their AI agents to do all kinds of things like digital influencers or apps to feed a Tamagotchi for you. That would become an “instant success” that can generate billions of dollars, but the possibility that, right now, 100,000 of those agents will build a company like NVIDIA “is zero percent,” he noted. What is AGI? That is, current AI and agents can create “fleeting and viral hits”, but… that is not the question. That is, one thing is agentic AI, which is something that all the major companies in the sector are already pushing and, basically, it is like a shortcut program for AI to do things for us. And a very different one is the AGI. The artificial general intelligence that Huang says we have already achieved is something very different. While the agents drink from the same AI that is nothing more than a language model that is dedicated to putting together words that more or less make sense, but that are calculated by algorithms, percentages and probabilities As long as two words go together, AGI is a “real” artificial intelligence, one that thinks like a human. It is something that, as far as we know, is only in the theoretical framework because its technical complexity is overwhelming. The big difference between an AI and agents and AGI is that, if the first two have language as their core and operate from it, AGI is the human brain whose core is thought. Or so they aspire to create. Is Huang an AI? After seeing some of their recent statements and this interview, the question that arises is why there are certain profiles that are choosing to “reason” exactly the way an AI reasons. These tools They are designed to prove us right.so as not to confront us and so that we spend more time using that AI and not another. That’s why ChatGPT or Gemini are so accommodating in their responses when we try to find a way around them. But, as Mashable points out, giving that more convenient answer is also becoming a trend among “real” intelligences. The wolf is coming. Huang himself already pointed out in 2024 that AGI would be software capable of imitating standard human intelligence, but his examples do not seem to match the idea of ​​what AGI is. The industry seems hell-bent on reaching AGI through language models, but as some point out, It’s a dead end. Yann LeCun is considered one of the godfathers of modern AI. Until recently, he was also the head of AI at Meta and stated that the path to AGI is not language modelsbut the world models. They are models that will learn from the environment, will be able to imagine scenarios and operate like humans. That has nothing to do with current models that would not be possible without plundering the Internet and human-created culture. It is not at all clear what it will be the spark that will allow that general artificial intelligence will be reached, but the American AI Big Tech never tires of saying that AGI is already here. Now it is, really good. Huang just stated it to qualify his words in the following sentence, Sam Altman of OpenAI It has been creating expectation for a long time about the AGI when they are not yet able to do a ChatGPT that doesn’t hallucinate, Zuckerberg has assembled a super team to achieve itAnthropic’s Darío Amodei believes that is at the doors and Elon Musk says that Grok 5 could achieve it. At the moment, a lot of promises, and something that creates an app to power a Tamagotchi doesn’t sound like that great revolution in technology either. Images | NVIDIA In Xataka | Customers demand that a human solve their problem. The surprising thing is that if humans serve them they think they are an AI

How a mummified wolf has solved the mystery of the woolly rhino’s extinction

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14,400 years ago, a barely nine-week-old wolf cub feasted on the Siberian stage. Shortly after gobbling that piece of meat, the puppy died and was buried in the permafrostnear the village of Tumat in northeastern Siberia. Something that at first seems insignificant, has given one of the most important milestones in modern paleogenetics. And this one was in this puppy’s stomach. The study. A team of scientists from the Center for Paleogenetics at Stockholm University has achieved what seemed impossible: Recover the complete high-coverage genome of a woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) from the undigested remains in that wolf’s stomach. The results, published in Genome Biology and Evolutionforce us to rewrite the books on how and why this megafauna became extinct, since until now we had a very different idea. A biological miracle. The discovery of this puppy is not something recent, since it was found in 2011, and received the nickname Tumat-1. Being mummified in ice, the reality is that it was in perfect condition, but during the autopsy the researchers found a 3-centimeter piece of tissue with remains of blonde fur. Due to the area in which it was initially found, it was thought that it was a cave lion. But the reality is that genetics has said something very different: it was a woolly rhinoceros. Something that is incredible, since it is the first time in history that the complete genome of an Ice Age animal has been sequenced from the stomach contents of another animal. A great milestone. For science to recover the genetic material of a species in these conditions, the truth is that it is something incredible because of the doors it opens. And DNA is where we can find practically everythingeven the genetic health of the species before its end. Genetic decline. For decades, the dominant theory suggested that woolly rhinos disappeared due to slow genetic erosion. It was believed that, as its population was reduced, inbreeding accumulated harmful mutations that doomed the species due to the many diseases caused by having children between relatives. But this is something that has now been completely debunked. When comparing the genome with samples from 18,000 and 48,500 years ago, the researchers found no decline in diversity. Furthermore, there was no indication that the species was in a state of inbreeding as there was no genetic crossing between close relatives. That is why the effective population remained stable at about 1,600 individuals until just a few centuries before its total disappearance. The culprit. If it was not genetics and inbreeding that condemned the species and not human hunting (because thousands of years passed together without it happening)… what happened? Science now points to Bølling-Allerød Interstadial, a period of abrupt climate warming that occurred about 14,000 years ago. This phenomenon transformed the dry, cold steppe (the rhino paradise) into a landscape of bushy vegetation and, most critically, deep snow. Without being able to live. The woolly rhino, with its short legs and heavy body, was not designed to walk on soft snow or dig for grass under thick layers for food. In this way, it was an environmental trap that caused the animals to not be able to adapt correctly to the new habitat that had been generated around them due to how quickly it happened. Looking to the future. What we learn in the past can also be applied today and tomorrow. And this study does not only speak of the past, since in a context of current climate crisis, the case of the woolly rhinoceros is a warning. It shows that even a species with a stable population and robust genetics can collapse almost instantly if the ecosystem changes abruptly. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | Whale vomit: a rare substance that looks like floating garbage, but can cost up to $71,000 per kilo

The wolf has been a huge hot political potato for years. In Asturias they will allow the hunters to dejize them

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In Spain there is a group that has been aware of the wolves. And they are not the zoologists, animalists, hunters or farmers. Even more so that they are politicians who have spent the last years discussing The legal status of the Canis lupusa delicate issue that has generated a deep debate. The last arrives from Asturias, where the Principality has taken A decision Radical: Allow hunters to shoot the wolves in certain community reserves. Not everyone believes it is legal. What happened? What Asturias will allow That hunters shoot Lobos during their beaters in certain areas of the Principality, those reserves in which there has been an increase in cattle attacks. The decision, which has already generated an intense debate and has encountered The frontal opposition of the animalists, directly connects with a series of legal changes that have gradually cracking the legal shielding of which the Canis lupus. What do Asturias want to do? Open the door to the hunters to participate in the reduction of the population of Lobos. As a “complementary control method”, the Ministry of Rural Affairs has decided that hunters of those regional reserves “in which a greater number of damage to cattle have been detected” can shoot wolves during hunts scheduled to capture other species. That is, it gives the green light to the hunters so that (if certain conditions are met) they can reduce them while looking for prey. “The goal is Clarifies the Principalitywhich has also asked that in the “most affected” hunting preserves the guards participate in the controls together with the natural environment agents. Why do you do it? To answer that question you have to go back several months, to April, when the Government of Asturias presented its annual “road map” (applicable until the end of March 2026) to “reduce damage to the primary sector and social conflict” related to the wolves. That is, its ‘Wolf Management Plan’an official document that among other things clarified how many catches of Canis lupus The Asturian authorities have authorized. In that document It was revealed that the minimum wolves are around 345 copies and, based on that, the Ministry of Rural Affairs has decided to give green light to “the extraction of a maximum of 53”. Even the maximum number of animals that would be “extracted” in each area of ​​the Principality was required, some guidelines were given on the periods to carry out “the controls” and it was clarified how they will be carried out. Among them, in addition to the beating made by the environmental agents of the Principality, It was already progressing that one of the options contemplated by the plan was to resort directly to the help of hunters in regional reserves. But the wolf was not protected? Throughout the last months the status of the wolf has changed considerably. And with him he has done his legal armor. In Spain the most relevant novelty It happened in March. During the processing of A law of food waste (yes, you have read well) Congress approved several amendments centered on the wolf. And among them there was a specific one that returned the species to the situation in which it was before 2021year in which the Canis lupus It had been added to the list of wild species with special protection (Lespre). In the practice that the wolf appeared in the Lespre valed the hunting of specimens north of the Duero, something that already happened south of the river. The decision of the Congress to take it out meant that the Peninsular North packs lost their armor, which in turn opened the door for the autonomous communities to decide on their hunt. The Principality itself I recognized Last April that launched its ‘Wolf Management Plan’ after the last changes in Lespre. It was not the only one. Cantabria did something similar. In fact rtpa It revealed This same week that the community has already “extracted” more than half of the wolves of the quota authorized for the 2025-2026 period, which translates into 25 copies of a total of 41. And why do you turn to the hunters? That is one of the keys to the controversy that has emerged in Asturias. The Principality explains that it has decided to allow hunters to shoot wolves while looking for other species in reserves for “Increase efficacy” of the plan, which provides for the “extraction” of a maximum of 53 wolves. There are those who have seen in that argument an alarm signal. “If the reason for involving hunters is the difficulty in reaching the number of dead wolves established in the quotas, perhaps the cause is not so much the lack of efficiency of the method to hunt them, but the shortage of wolves itself, something that seems that the Asturian government does not even value,” warns The Wolf Protection Fund, very critical of the new decision of the Principality. How many wolves are there? In spring the regional government calculated that the wolf is present in 83% of the Asturian territory, where some 45 herds inhabit between 360 and 405 animals. “Since 2001, the year in which 22 herds were registered, the population has shown a general growth trend, as well as the damages caused by livestock,” Concrete the Principality. To be more precise, remember that last year damage to 3,257 head of cattle and the cost of compensation grew to exceed the million and a half euros were confirmed. These figures are those that justified the control plan, although It is unknown How many wolves have fallen in the community today. Have there been reactions? Yes. And of different types. The Government insists in which his is a “balanced positioning” between the preservation of the species and the interests of farmers and ranchers, but the truth is that everything related to the legal framework of the wolf has been involved in a deep debate for months. The hunters They recognize Having received the last announcement from the … Read more

A century of herbivores at ease was ending with Yellowstone. Salvation was logical: call the wolf

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‘Jurassic Park‘He has memorable moments, but perhaps a phrase is the one that fell me the most in his day: “Life makes its way”The problem is that the hand of man exercises Too much influence on natureand the Yellowstone park It is an excellent example of how an ecosystem that was regulated perfectly was twisting due to a decision made 100 years ago: eradicate the wolves. Consequence? May the park run out of trees. And to turn to the tortilla, the researchers had an idea: return to repopble Yellowstone with wolves. Yellowstone in short. The arrival of European settlers to the North American west caused the expansion of the agriculture and, above all, livestock (With grazing and the Basques carrying the reins). The enemy of cattle was the wolf, since it was a direct threat and, due to its vital role for the local economy, extermination campaigns began to be carried out. The result was that, by 1930, the wolves (as well as other predators such as pumas, coyotes and bears) practically disappeared from some areas such as Yellowstone. Even the army is implied. If the predators disappear, those that were their prey have free field to reproduce without control, and that caused that alces and deer proliferate, creating a huge imbalance in the population of herbivores and, therefore, in the flora of the park. In the end, overparation and a overpopulation of wild herbivores caused the trees to disappear from Yellowstone. Lobos, to curra. The trees that worried were the scenes and it is not a matter of the alces to stay without food. How can we read in Oregon State UniversityThey are vital elements for birds that nest in them and for beavers, among other species. Thus, in 1995 the decision of V was madeOlver to incorporate those predators to the ecosystem. Lobos, Bears and Pumas, another predator practically removed from the area, returned to the place they should never abandon, and the results have not taken to appear. Results. Luke Painter, professor of ecology and conservation at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Oregon, comments that “The reintroduction of great carnivores has started a recovery process that had been paralyzed for decades. ” studyThey detail that the “price” is the sustained decrease in population of the Cervus canadensisallowing the quarrels to experience exceptional growth. This “trophic waterfall” examined 87 rhods of poplars in northern Yellowstone, finding that 43% of them presented a new population of small trees between five and ten centimeters in diameter, being the first positive count since the 1940s. They comment that the density of grazing remains the dominant factor for the regeneration of poplar, but that that Introduction of predators has relieved the load that herbivores exert in the ecosystem. In addition, the study rules out changes in the climate as the main cause of that recovery, once again influencing the importance of the reintroduction of the wolf as the element that has caused “changes in the distribution of the ALCE, giving rise to recovery”. The Wolf as a lever. Not everyone is on that ship. A previous study On the part of researchers at Utah State University and the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point put on the table that, although the role of the wolf had been important for the recovery of poplar, its role was exaggerated due to the way in which previous measurements were made. But what has happened in Yellowstone is not an isolated story. That persecution of the wolf has been lived in other areas and, in Europe, due to its impact on livestock, they are also promulgated laws for extermination. The ecological consequences are similar to the views in Yellowstone and, in Scotland, there is an overpopulation of red deer that are ending local forests. At a time when we need trees so that They catch co₂it is already being raised release more than 150 wolves in the ‘Highlands’ Scottish to control deer and save forests. While some release them… But as we are condemned to repeat the story, at the end of 2024, the Permanent Committee of the Bern agreement voted in favor of reduce wolf protection status. This makes it “strictly protected” to “protected”, which opens the door to A desire on the part of certain parliamentariansfarmers and hunters: that can bother the wolf. And not with paint ballsas in Netherlands. In Xataka | Russia has found a frozen wolf 44,000 years ago “in perfect condition.” First decision: open it

After the giant wolf, a huge bird of New Zealand wins points to be desixtinquida. And Peter Jackson has a lot to do

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‘Jurassic Park‘It is a science fiction story until it ceases to be. Not so much because there are those who consider current technology can bring dinosaurs backbut because there is already a company that is returning to life species that were extinguished thousands of years ago. It is colossal and are accepting requests to relive your favorite extinct animal. Whenever you call yourself Peter Jackson and have 25 million dollars to donate them. “Hobby”Jackson does not need presentations at this point. After several minor films, he jumped to world fame with his adaptation of ‘The Lord of the Rings‘, which allowed him to fulfill another of his dreams: roll a King Kong movie. In the tape the love that the New Zealander director feels for animals from other times, but that passion transcends to the screen was felt. Interestingly, one of the director’s fun is to collect Moa bones, to the point of having one of the largest private collections in the world focused on the bones of that extinct animal. “The movies are my work, but the moa are my hobby,” commented Jackson. From left to right a kiwi, an ostrich and a moa. They were … big De -sextinging the moa. But … what is a moa? In a nutshell, it’s like a kiwi, but about three meters high, about 250 kilos and can not fly either. His closest living relatives would be the aforementioned kiwis, but also the casuaries and the most similar would be Emú. New Zealand natives, the MOA was not extinguished: we extinguish it. When the Maori arrived at the islands, they began to hunt them and, although sightings have been reported in the nineteenth century, there is no evidence of this and it is considered that the MOA was extinguished, at least 500 years ago. Jackson comments that “any Neozyre child feels fascination with Moa.” Colossal comes into play. The filmmaker has between 300 and 400 Moa bones, and it will be that private collection the one that drives The animal’s de -sexyction thanks to a company called Colossal. It is not the first time we talk about them, since it is a company dedicated to biotechnology that has become popular for their interest in Return animal to life like mammoth or the Tasmania tiger. Also to Dodo. What they do is Take extinct animal DNAsomething that can be done from bones such as those that Jackson possesses and, the more remains, the better, and combine it with samples of relatives who live today. That is the easy thing: the complicated thing comes when, once the genetic information of the two DNA is combined, they are “filtering variants” to edit the genes and get exactly the animal they want. Finally, a living animal is used to give birth to the “new” creature. And it is not cheap. Money. A lot. In a recent financing round, Colossal Biosciences reached a assessment of 10,200 million dollars. At the end of 2024, Jackson already He collaborated With 10 million dollars in Colossal Bioscience, but now it has donated another 15 million for the company to place the MOA in its list of ‘goals’. This implies that we will take time to see the result. Now, Colossal is not just castles in the air. In April of this year, the company advertisement His first success: they had achieved resurrect the giant wolf, the Aenocyon Dirus. Now there are three puppies called Romulo, Remo and Khaleesi that, with six months of age – they were born in January this year – they have reached a weight of about 36 kilos and a length of 120 cm. They are expected to reach 180 cm and 68 kilos each. Jackson on the left and Ben Lamm, one of the founders of Colossal, on the right. Both with moa bones Complex. We will see what happens to the moa, but there are those who think that what is best colossal is Sell the motorcycle. With the MOA we are at a very early stage of the welcoming, but as we read in Physthe process seems to be more complex than with the wolves. Beth Shapiro is the chief scientist of Colossal and has commented that, unlike what happens with mammals, bird embryos develop inside eggs, so the process of transferring an embryo to a substitute mother will be very different from in vitro fertilization in mammals. Nic Rawlence is a paleontologist who works at the University of Otago and has commented that reviving New Zealand birds “is not scientifically possible with current technology.” The problem is that there is no good moa genome and its closest relatives are the Tinamúesof those who separated 60 million years ago. Criticism Apart from that, which is an important challenge, there is another issue: if an extinct animal is revived, is the patent of nature or the responsible company? Ben Lamm, the director of Colossal, has already explained that They do not want to monetize those animals directly, but sell its technology. But of course, he does not close the door to patent what they wish. And, although Alex, 10 would love to see a tyrannosaur in the streets of San Diego, the current Alex knows that no company is going to do it for love of art and that, probably, it does not matter that the habitat of that animal does not look like it or the least to the one he had at the time of his disappearance. Who is excited It’s Jackson. “Returning the moa to life would be so exciting, if not more, than any movie you could do.” Images | Colossal, Kkpcw, Gage Skidmore In Xataka | We just closed a primate. If someone believes that brings us closer to the cloning of humans, it is wrong

The wolf hunting throughout Spain depended on a red button that changes its status. And Europe has decided to press it

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The wolf has just seen how his future is complicated in European soil. And not because of pollution, global warming, a new disease that affects herds or the loss of their ecosystem. No. The key is in the EU Official Gazettewhich has just published the directive that degrades the status of protection of the species, passing it from “strictly protected” to only “protected”. Maybe it sounds like a smaller detail or pure community bureaucracy, but In the case of Spain It will allow hunters to reduce animals throughout the country. The reason: a chain of legal changes. What happened? After years of controversypolitical anger and a rifirrafe attempt between environmentalists and hunters, over the last months the wolf has seen how cracks opened in the legal armor that protected him from the hunters. And the reason must be sought in a series of decisions adopted nationally and community. In the case of Spain, one of the key steps to reduce the protection of the wolf In Marchduring the processing of the Law on Food Waste in Congress. Now there has been a new step in that same direction, but at the broader level, with a change that It has just officialized he EU Official Gazette. And what change is that? Basically degrades The status of the Canis lupus. Instead of being considered a “strictly protected species”, as until now, it appears in the list of “protected”. Without more. It may seem like a small adjustment, but in practice it supposes that the wolf will appear without nuances in the list of animals that “can be subject to management measures.” That is, hunt. The European directive was approved a few days ago, June 17but just officialize in the EU Official Gazetteas He has revealed eldiario.es. Again it may seem simple bureaucratic, but it has important repercussions: from now on it opens a period of 20 days For the entry into force of change, so on July 14 the wolf will have lost its “strictly protected” status. Is it a novelty? Yes. And no. The change made in the Habitat Directive to beginning of this month And his recent publication in “The Community Boe” are important news for their impact, but they will actually surprise few. The wolf’s legal armor has been a reason for debate at European level. The controversy can be at least 2022, when the president of the CE, Ursula von der Leyen, lost his favorite pony for the attack of a wolf. That same year Brussels commissioned a “In -depth analysis” on the increase of the species in the continent thanks to its legal armor against the hunters. What was your conclusion? “The concentration of wolves in some European regions has become a real danger to cattle and, potentially, also for humans”, He reflected Von der Leyen in 2023. In the same statement, the CE encouraged local authorities to “take measures when necessary.” What happened since then? That community machinery has continued working on the subject. TO late 2024 The Permanent Committee of the Berna Agreement voted in favor of the EU proposal to reduce the wolf protection status, so that it passed from “strictly protected” to only “protected”, and In March The Commission moved again to propose that this change was transferred to its Habitats directiveadaptation that He received green light This same month. And what happens in Spain? The wolf has not only been the protagonist of community policy. Throughout the last years it has also served to warm the debate in Spain, where environmentalists, hunters or the parliamentary arch itself differs on the degree of protection that the species must enjoy in the Peninsula. Ecologists in action He thinks for example, authorizing his hunt “turns his back on science.” For the RFF it will help the “coexistence” With the farmers. With that backdrop, three months ago Congress adopted a series of fundamental measures for the future of the wolf in our country. The most immediate affected the herds located north of the Duero River. The lower house He endorsed A change in The Royal Decree that develops the Lespre to eliminate the protection of the animals located in that territory and that the autonomies can decide on their hunting. In practice that meant returning them to the situation in which they were before 2021. And what happens to the south of the Duero? It is there where there will be news from now on. In March Congress He opened the door Also to be reduced by the protection of the wolf to the south of the Duero, but as long as its community protection is reduced before, something that has just been formalized. In that way The species comes out of the special protection regime list also south of the Duero River. Interestingly, the Congress of Deputies made the decision while processed a law on food waste management. The reason: the promoters of the amendment that made possible the change in the Statute of the Wolf They argued that the attacks of the wolves to the cattle generate thousands of kilos of lost meat. Images | Leopold de Castro (Flickr) 1 and 2 In Xataka | We have made the giant wolves return after 10,000 extinct years. The problem is that they “return” may not be the right word

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