A plan to hunt and shoot up to 100 wolves in the mountains of northern Spain has angered environmentalists who say the culling is an unnecessary sop to farmers who claim livestock are under attack.

The plan comes as hill farmers in parts of the northern province of León complain that the wolves' population growth is higher than that for humans.

Some mayors claim wildlife is given a higher priority than humans in the rugged countryside along the Cordillera Cantábrica chain of mountains. "The wolf gains where man gives way," the Diario de León newspaper said. "As soon as the people who work the valley go off to find a better standard of life, the wolf occupies their territory and begins to reproduce."

The area around the Leonese town of Riaño has lost almost two-thirds of its population over several decades. It now has 17 packs of wolves.

Environmentalists said this was no excuse for culling the wolf population. "You cannot set about liquidating between 10 and 30% of the wolf population," said a spokesman for the local office of the World Wildlife Fund. Some 100 packs of wolves are believed to roam the countryside in León, with at least a quarter of them known to be reproducing. They travel widely and extend into neighbouring areas of Galicia, Cantabria and Asturias.

Farmers in Asturias are worried that the wolves will move into their region when the culling starts. "It is logical to think that we run the risk of them settling here," said a spokesman for farmers in the Aller region. Environmentalists say that many attacks on cattle attributed to wolves are actually carried out by wild dogs.