French farmers face new blitzkrieg from wolves
In the 1930's wolves became extinct in France. Sixty years later, wild wolves crossed over the Alps from Italy into France. This group has since expanded to up to 200 individuals in 20 different packs. The wolves have spread to cover 15 out of 94 départements (map) reaching North to the Vosges in Lorraine and West to Cantal in Auvergne (map), and occupying the French Pyrenees for the first time in a century.
The presence of the wolves has caused considerable distress to French shepherds — particularly in the French Pyrenees, where they are forced to contend with a growing wolf population, along with a now-discontinued government plan to reintroduce brown bears.
The government reports 1329 animals killed by wolves in 2011 as of July 22, mostly sheep. Another source says there have been 66 wolf attacks, almost as many as in the entire period of 2010. Adding to the unhappiness are EU laws that prevent shooting the wolves without authorisation.
One alternative that has been suggested is the use of Patou dogs (also known as Great Pyrenees) which have historically been used to guard against wolves. This is also a controversial suggestion; some shepherds claim the dogs are worse than the wolves, as they can attack tourists. Cases have even been reported of anti-Patou shepherds poisoning the dogs.
Jean-Marc Moriceau, wolf expert and author, says that wolves will, at their current rate of progress, reach the forests 50 miles South of Paris in 10-15 years. Although the spread of the wolves is a welcome occurrence for environmentalists, it is likely to fuel more anger and friction between farmers and the wolves unless some sort of solution can be reached.
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Rakuen Growlithe — read stories — contact (login required)a scientist and Growlithe from South Africa, interested in science, writing, pokemon and gaming
I'm a South African fur, originally from Cape Town. I'm interested in science, writing, gaming, all sorts of furry stuff, Pokemon and some naughtier things too! I've dabbled in art before but prefer writing. You can find my fiction on SoFurry and non-fiction on Flayrah.
Comments
What kind of wolf?
According to the article, grey wolves. You'd think that after all of these years farmers would have figured out a solution other than killing.
Well when I was reading 'The Man Who Lives With Wolves' (the author actually did live in a wolf pack for a while) the author went to Poland at one point and was using recordings of wolves through a loudspeaker to fool wild wolves into thinking the farms were another pack's territory. As far as I understand that was working pretty well.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
never thought i would find an article about that here. we had a discussion about it with a person who have been farmer all his life, and that's a generation thing around here. and we both agreed that the wolves aren't an enemy at all.
for centuries and centuries there have always been wolves in france. it's an historic fact. they were extinct, many races have disappeared leaving an important gap in this country's ecosystem.
so yeah the farmers gonna hate, but they have to deal with that. wolves must be reintroduced and the rednecks need to secure their farms. it's a good thing that it will force them to care more about their lambs and packs. there are solutions. get some dogs like they always did - they will defend their sector.
take a german shepherd or a malinois, the wolf will run away, really.
200 wolves is nothing. by the official stats and ratings of the ONF and the minister of ecology, it's still not enough individuals to officially classify the species even as "successfully reintroduced". the minimal amount/threshold to get the wolves into the stats is about 2000-3000.
it will probably end up the same way it did back home with coyotes they will overpopulate, become a nuisance and eventually be downgraded to varmint maby even put a price on them.
on the mountains i used to live in in west Virgina they introduced coyotes
witch ended up killing off most of the deer and anything smaller to the point that they made it so you can hunt them all year and even put a bounty of i think it was 10 for each one killed not shur if its still the case been about 4 years since iv been back.
hopefully they can find a way to fix this without killing off the wolfs but sadly i could honestly see them shooting them its the easiest way and probably the quickest although the most destructive
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