Court suspends French Alps wolf cull
MARSEILLE, France, Aug 11 (AFP) – France’s first wolf cull since the 1930s
was halted on Wednesday after a court ruled that a government order
authorizing the action, which sheep farmers say is necessary to protect
their flocks, was invalid.
The Marseille court ruled on a technicality, saying the cull orders for
the Hautes-Alpes and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence departments in southern
France were illegal because the initial ministerial order had not yet been
published in the government gazette.
The decision was a victory for the Association for the Protection of Wild
Species (ASPAS), whose lawyers had argued the cull would endanger a
species that is protected under European law.
A court in Nice suspended the cull order in the Alpes-Maritimes department
last week. Wednesday’s decision in the two other south-eastern departments
effectively put a halt to the operation.
Environment Minister Serge Lepeltier had authorized the move in the
southern Alps last month, saying that up to four wolves could be shot by
year’s end if attacks on sheep continued. Exterminated in France before
World War II, the wolf was reintroduced in 1992 in the Mercantour national
park on France’s border with Italy, and its population has since increased
by 20 percent a year.
Sheep farmers who bring their flocks to graze on the Alpine slopes during
the summer months complain of the devastation caused by the predator, with
more than 2,150 sheep killed in 2003, according to official figures.
The wolf is a protected species under European law and a cull can only be
organized under strict conditions that do not endanger the survival of the
colony.
Lepeltier said the four authorized kills would represent 10 percent of the
officially established population, which is of 39 animals, rather than of
the widely accepted figure of 55.
He also said that if the first three animals to be shot were female, there
would be no further kill.
The government had initially planned to authorize the killing of five to
seven animals but was forced to reduce the number under pressure from
environmentalists who want to see the wolf move beyond its enclave in
southeast France.
ASPAS lawyer Benoit Candon qualified the killing of four wolves as
“enormous and disproportionate”.