There would be 700 to 1,000 wolves throughout France, according to the finest estimates available, made by the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB). While this now protected species was established throughout the territory a hundred years ago, it died out in the 1930s mainly due to the reduction of its habitat and hunting. Since the 1990s, wolves of Italian stock have gradually recolonized the French territory, particularly baited by the multiplication of ungulate populations (deer, wild boar, roe deer, etc.).
For twenty years, packs have been installed throughout the Alpine arc but individuals have been spotted in departments much further west, such as recently Vienne (New Aquitaine) which recorded its first predations on ewes, the 16 and March 17.
A recolonization, almost everywhere in France
“It makes sense to find them a little in all the departments of France, analyzes Denis Doublet vice-president coordinator Wolf at Ferus, first national association for the protection and conservation of bears, wolves and lynx in France. At this time it is the period of dispersal of the young of one to two years. When the alpha couple, the one that reproduces, has young, either the young leave on their own or they are pushed to do so. An instinct that has to do with the need for genetic mixing of the lupine population. Isolated and passing wolves have thus been observed in Finistère, Normandy, Charente-Maritime and Pyrénées-Orientales.
“He is everywhere in France, specifies this specialist, former curator. For a year, we have had a pack in Lozère, it is the only one identified. It is also quite bizarre for scientists that these wolves only reproduce on the Alpine arc, and there are suspicions of poaching. »
Anticipating cohabitation with breeding
This natural return of the wolf, in the sense that it has not been reintroduced like the bear, is not without posing problems of cohabitation with breeders, who have not been used to its presence. “Of course there is concern on the part of breeders regarding the protection of their herds”, comments Stéphanie Meillaud, president of the association of breeders of Vienne (ADEV.) If training is underway for guard dogs, breeders are above all awaiting the next political directives in this area. Other protective equipment (fencing, scaring devices etc.) can also be financed.
After the recent sheep attack, the conclusions show that “we cannot dismiss the responsibility of the wolf and, according to the regulations, the doubt benefits the breeders, explains Gaëlle Dordain, head of the hunting forest fishing unit, at the departmental directorate of territory of Vienna. For the first time in the department of Vienne, there is an initiation of compensation procedures for breeders. The scales in this area are national.
Since 2020, this department has been preparing for the return of the wolf since the neighboring department of Haute-Vienne had already noted its growing presence. Since January 2023, a monitoring unit that brings together all the agricultural, forestry, hunting and environmental associations has been set up there. The OFB has set up training for correspondents capable of spotting wolf tracks and sending them back to the wolf network.
Adapt tools, designed for alpine areas
The front of wolf colonization progresses more and more and goes beyond the borders for which the accompaniments of the State had been thought. “The tools put in place correspond more to alpine breeding than to that carried out in the plain, points out Gaëlle Dordain. For example, in the Vienne, there are small scattered lots and the animals can be out in the grass all year round, without returning to shelter at certain times. “For the moment in Vienne, the passages are punctual and it is generally a single individual. “If it settled, the predations would be more regular”, points out the head of the hunting forest fishing unit.
“But I hear some who say that the wolf will kill all the fauna, it is biologically false, underlines Denis Doublet. It is an animal that arouses a lot of fears and fantasies. The problem of cohabitation with livestock does indeed exist, but he believes that a balance has to be found and that certain protection tools have yet to be invented. “Scaring, for example (in paintball in the United States), is very little used even though it has virtues for educating wolves. Before crying wolf, the breeders are waiting to see how the authorities will help them concretely.