One Voice will be at the Montpellier Tribunal on 30 November to enforce the law on protecting wolves
To compensate for the lack of protection of herds, the Hérault Prefect has trampled on the progression of measures implemented to repel wolves. One Voice’s emergency interim hearing is on 30 November 2022 in Montpellier.
For one flock located in a non-protected zone, the Hérault Prefect has immediately authorised reinforced defensive shots on wolves without going through simple scaring and defence shots first. A measure implemented without respecting the obligatory steady increase written in law, a sine qua non condition to derogate from various wolf protection regimes. For One Voice, systematic shooting is not a sustainable or acceptable solution for happy cohabitation with nature and mountain inhabitants.
Wolves are sensitive, reserved, social animals who all have their place in our ecosystem. Their species has returned naturally to national areas; proof, if any is needed, that the conditions for their presence have been met.
We, humans, have to learn to live wisely with wild animals, without systematically using lethal solutions. We praise the inventiveness of our species, our innovation. Why then, in an ecological place and faced with other inhabitants of the planet, are we so uninventive? They, like us, deserve better than systematically resorting to the easiest solution: massacring. We are more creative than that. Let’s prove it.
The Canis lupus species is protected by the Bern Convention and the 1992 ‘Habitats’ Directive. The latter has imposed the implementation of strict protection for wolves within the member states, and France has therefore included them in their Code of the Environment. The only possible exemptions to this protection system are gradual and are, legally speaking, much led by the ministerial decree of 23 October 2020. This authorises prefects to sporadically implement scaring measures, simple defence shots, reinforced defence shots, and finally test shots.
For the herd in Fraisse-sur-Agout, admittedly declared as being un-protectable, no simple defence shots had been authorised beforehand, and above all, there had not been any attacks for a year! For One Voice, the prefectural decree does not fulfil the conditions allowing this authorisation to be legally granted. We have therefore filed an emergency interim suspension which will go to a hearing at 2:30pm on 30 November at the Montpellier Administrative Tribunal. This will allow us, if we win the case, to immediately prevent an application for the decree. At the same time, we have also filed a cancellation plea, to be judged later, which will decide on the legality of the decree.
On a European level, the coalition that we are part of, the European Environmental Bureau, has written to MEPs for them to join and commit in favour of large carnivores and wolves in particular with the resolution being voted on on 24 November.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice