The estimate for the number of wolves present in France in 2023 stood at 1,003 individuals, down 9% over one year, according to a press release published Thursday by nature defense associations.
These associations – WWF France, the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), France Nature Environnement (FNE), Ferus, Aspas and Humanity and Biodiversity – are asking the State to reduce, consequently, the number of authorized shootings of predator, set at 19% of the population. The figure of 1,003 was confirmed by an administrative source close to the case.
The number of wolf attacks on the rise
This source, however, specified that the ceiling of wolves that could be killed would be maintained at “209 wolves based on the decree in force”. The percentage of 19% of canis lupus that can be legally killed is calculated, under this decree, on the estimated population at the end of winter, which was 1,104, explained the same source. Furthermore, the number of wolf attacks is increasing nationally, she said.
A meeting of the National Wolf Group (GNL) will be held on Friday in Lyon. It is a consultative body bringing together elected officials, representatives of the agricultural world, shepherds, hunters, protected areas, administrations and nature protection associations. The NGOs slammed the door in September, deeming the new National Wolf Plan 2024-2029 “unacceptable”.
A “strictly protected” species
This plan provides in particular for increased support for breeders in the face of predation on their livestock, easier shooting of carnivores, as well as an overhaul of the current wolf “counting” system, in reality an estimate established by the French Office of Biodiversity (OFB) based on indices (traces, howls, genetic analyses, etc.) The figures made public on Thursday are based on the old method.
After being exterminated in France, the wolf reappeared in the early 1990s crossing the Alps from Italy, and its ranks gradually grew, to the great dismay of breeders who deplored more than 12,000 animals attacked in 2022.
While the wolf is a “strictly protected” species in the European Union, the new wolf plan in France raises the possibility of reviewing the status of the animal. The government must “stop advocating a downgrading of the level of protection of the species, this new estimate reinforcing the observation that it is not in a good state of conservation”, retort the NGOs.