Teeth bared in battle of French wolves
PARIS, May 14 (AFP) – France’s green groups sent up a collective howl on
Wednesday after a parliamentary panel recommended that Alpine sheep
farmers be allowed to shoot wolves that attack their flocks.
The “wolf question” has been sparked by an estimated 30 animals that live
in isolated parts of the French Alps, apparently after sneaking across the
border from Italy a decade ago.
Farmers in the high mountains claim they have lost around 5,500 sheep to
the predators in the past three years alone, and some say they face ruin.
Seeking to end the fierce, protracted debate, the parliament set up
commission of inquiry to make recommendations aimed at both keeping the
wolves alive and the farmers happy.
The panel’s report, issued Wednesday, stood by France’s “international
undertakings” on endangered species but would water down the legal
protections given to the wolves at the moment.
Its 25 proposals notably suggest that Alpine areas be placed in three
kinds of legal category: areas where the wolf would be given “complete
protection”; those where it could be “culled under certain conditions”;
and finally areas where “its presence would not be tolerated.”
If wolves and humans cannot live alongside one another, “priority must be
given to humans,” the chairman of the panel, Christian Estrosi, of the
rightwing UMP party, whose constituency lies in the Alpes-Maritimes
district and who has championed the sheep farmers.
The report has no legal or binding value, but many ecologists assailed it
as a predictable sellout to the country’s powerful farming lobby.
France Nature Environment, gathering most of the country’s green groups,
said the proposals would encourage “council wolf-hunts and give farmers
the direct right” to shoot the animals.
“It is an eradication campaign in all but name,” it said.
Another organisation, France Wolf Group, of which WWF is a member, said
however that the wolf-culling should not be dismissed out of hand.
“The possibility of culling wolves, when the population reaches maximum
sustainability of around 100 animals, should be accepted by ecologists,”
its chairman, Rene Burle, told AFP.
The wolf is protected by the 1979 Bern Convention on wild species, which
however allows protected animals to be killed if they are deemed dangerous
to the public or inflict great damage to property.
Over the last 10 years, French sheep farmers have received compensation
for 11,146 sheep that, they claim, have been killed by wolves.
“Each wolf costs the taxpayer EUR 100,000 (USD 88,000) a year” in
compensation and protection costs, claimed Estrosi.
The claims are checked by veterinary experts, who look for the wolves’
characteristic bite marks on the carcass.
Environmentalists say the underlying cause for the hostility towards
wolves is the disastrous state of French hillside sheep farming, which
largely survives thanks to handouts from Paris and Brussels.
Young people no longer go into the business, which means there are no more
shepherds to guard flocks, and cheap imports from Britain, New Zealand and
elsewhere are gaining an ever-larger share of the market.
Critics of the “shoot-to-kill” campaign also point to the success of some
500 wolves in neighbouring Italy, where the animals act as a
money-spinning tourist attraction.