• The first predations attributed to wolves were observed on 16 and 17 March in the Vienne department of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. A monitoring unit on the return of this large predator was launched at the beginning of the year.
  • If it breeds only on the Alpine arc, the wolf has been observed in many French departments in recent years.
  • Cohabitation with livestock farming, unaccustomed to the presence of wolves, raises legitimate concerns. The authorities are trying to anticipate, in particular by offering equipment and protection dogs, financed by the State.

There are 700 to 1,000 wolves throughout the France, according to the finest estimates available, carried out by the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB). While this now protected species was established throughout the territory a hundred years ago, it became extinct in the 1930s mainly due to habitat reduction and hunting. Since the 1990s, wolves of Italian origin have gradually recolonized the French territory, particularly lured by the multiplication of ungulate populations (deer, wild boar, roe deer etc.).

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For twenty years, packs have been installed throughout the Alpine arc but individuals are spotted in departments much further west, such as recently Vienne (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) which recorded its first predations on sheep, on March 16 and 17.

Recolonization, almost everywhere in France

"It's logical to find them in all the departments of France, analyzes Denis Doublet, vice-president coordinator Wolf at Ferus, the first national association for the protection and conservation of bears, wolves and lynx in France. At the moment it is the period of dispersion of young people from one to two years old. When the alpha couple, the one who breeds, has young, either the young leave on their own or they are pushed to do so. An instinct that has to do with the need for genetic mixing of the lupine population. Isolated and passing wolves have been observed in Finistère, Normandy, Charente-Maritime, Pyrénées-Orientales.

"It's all over the France," says this specialist, a former curator. For a year, we have a pack in Lozère, it is the only one identified. It is also quite strange for scientists that these wolves only breed on the Alpine arc, and there are suspicions of poaching. »

Anticipating cohabitation with livestock farming

This natural return of the wolf, in the sense that it has not been reintroduced like the bear, is not without problems of cohabitation with breeders, who have not been accustomed to its presence. "Of course there is concern on the part of breeders about the protection of their herds," comments Stéphanie Meillaud, president of the association of breeders of Vienne (ADEV.) While training is underway for protection dogs, breeders are mainly waiting for the next political directives in this area. Other protective equipment (fences, scaring etc.) can also be financed.

After the recent attack on sheep, the conclusions show that "we can not rule out the responsibility of the wolf and regulatory, the doubt benefits the breeders, explains Gaëlle Dordain, head of the hunting forest fishing unit, at the departmental direction of the territory of Vienne. For the first time in the department of Vienne, there is a initiation of compensation procedures for breeders. The scales in this area are national.

Since 2020, this department has been preparing for the return of the wolf since the neighboring department of Haute-Vienne had already noted its growing presence. Since January 2023, a monitoring unit that brings together all agricultural forestry, hunting and environmental associations has been set up. The OFB has set up the training of correspondents capable of spotting wolf tracks and tracing them back to the wolf network.

Adapting tools, designed for alpine areas

The wolf colonization front is progressing more and more and goes beyond the borders for which the accompaniments of the State had been designed. "The tools put in place correspond more to alpine breeding than to that conducted in the plain," points out Gaëlle Dordain. For example, in the Vienne, there are small scattered lots and the animals can be grassed all year round, without returning to the shelter at certain times. For the moment in the Vienne, the passages are punctual and it is a single individual in general. "If it settled, predations would be more regular," points out the head of the hunting forest fishing unit.

"But I hear some people saying that the wolf will kill all the wildlife, it's biologically false," says Denis Doublet. It is an animal that arouses a lot of fears and fantasies. The problem of cohabitation with livestock does exist, but he believes that a balance must be found and that some protection tools are still to be invented. "Scaring for example (paintball in the United States) is very little used while it has virtues to educate the wolf. " Before crying wolf, the breeders are waiting to see how the authorities will help them concretely.

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