Farming lobby puts the bite on wolves
14.08.2002
By CATHERINE FIELD Herald correspondent
PARIS – Jean-Claude Giordano is not a man to mince his words.
A sheep farmer whose pastures straddle the ridges of an Alpine
mountainside 1700m above sea level, he knows toughness and doggedness are
part of the daily existence.
But the death of 406 of his 1100 sheep after they were chased over a
ravine, apparently by wolves, is a cruel blow.
“Nothing will replace my sheep. I’m going to stop. My patience is at an
end. These sheep were like my children,” said Giordano, whose farm lies on
the edge of the Mercantour National Park in southeast France.
“When you spend your life with them, you see them born, you take care of
them when they’re sick, you get very attached to them, and it’s a blow to
see them wiped out at a stroke.
“As far as I’m concerned, the only solution is to get rid of the wolves.”
The attack on Giordano’s flock was followed a couple of weeks later by the
loss of a further 20 sheep, prompting the local authorities to mount
night-time patrols of armed gamekeepers and farmers to step up calls for
the predators to be slain.
“Wolves and sheep don’t belong together,” said Bernard Bruno, who also
farms in the area. “Wolves need huge expanses where there are no human
inhabitants. No one is happy, neither the wolves nor us, by having to live
together in this cramped area.”
Jean-Pierre Isnard, president of the region’s Young Farmers Association,
said: “If the authorities back the wolf, it’s not just our livelihood,
it’s the whole tradition of grazing in this region which will be wiped
out.
“No young sheep farmer wants to make his home in these parts.”
The French Government has paid about US$835,300 ($1.8 million) in
compensation to farmers who have lost 8800 sheep since the wolves first
ventured into the region from neighbouring Italy in 1992.
Of this total, 7400 were killed directly by “a large canine” and 1400 fell
into a ravine.
In Giordano’s case, seven sheep bodies were found by a vet to have deep
bite marks, which should open the way to US$60,000 in compensation for the
loss of the 406 animals.
Last year, a local shepherd, Aime Segur, said he was attacked by a
she-wolf and its two young as he went to collect his flock from pastures.
“I was going up. I stopped and something jumped on me. It was the wolf and
because I shouted – I was dead scared – my two Alsatians came to my rescue
and I escaped as best I could.”
His account is scorned by the environment group France Nature Environment
(FNE), which says a wolf would attack a man only if it were on the verge
of starvation.
Conservationists estimate that some 30 wolves live in the park and a
further 20 or so come across from Italy from time to time and, they
believe, the wolf’s return enhances the area’s image of wild beauty.
With so much land and so many natural resources in the region,
conservationists argue that man and beast should be able to live side by
side.
The wolves are protected within the European Union, but conservationists
fear farmers may already have taken matters into their own hands.
In 2000, a wolf was found shot dead in Isere region, with a sign nearby
reading: “We’re fed up with wolves.”
“The wolf is going to be the scapegoat,” said FNE’s Florence Englebert.
“Twenty years after its creation, the Mercantour Park has still not been
accepted by the locals.”
In January, FNE handed the Government a petition signed by 50,000 people,
including leading writers, scientists and movie-makers, urging it to do
more to protect the animals.
After almost being wiped out, wolves are slowly recovering in most parts
of Europe. In Russia, numbers are now so high that there are suggestions
of introducing an annual cull to keep numbers at a manageable 40,000.
The wolf’s return has been welcomed by tourists, keen to see the creatures
in their natural habitat.
In the Piatra Craiului mountains in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains,
tourists hoping to see colonies of wolves, bears and lynx brought in more
than US$130,000 in 1999.
In all, it is estimated that 2500 wolves now roam the countryside of
Ukraine, Romania and Slovakia.
In Scotland, one of the region’s wealthiest landowners is leading a
campaign for wolves and wild lynx to be introduced to help to keep red
deer numbers down.
Paul van Vlissingen says deer culls are not a permanent solution and deer
are hindering the natural regeneration of forests.
“I think wolves and lynx would fit very well, and I can promise you that
if you do your research you will find there are no known cases of anybody
ever being eaten by wolves in Europe in the past century.”