Wolf cub in mortal danger: Press release
In Saint-Nicolas-la-Chapelle (Savoie), a young orphaned wolf cub, suffering from mange and visibly weakened, has been surviving alone since the death of its parents—who appear to have been shot—and its sister. Despite warnings issued by One Voice, the authorities have made no plans to take the cub into care. This tragedy comes against a backdrop of an unprecedented hardening of policies against wolves across the country.
They have been the town’s main attraction for the past few months. Two wolf cubs, orphaned following the death of their parents—who were apparently shot—have been roaming around the town of Saint-Nicolas-La-Chapelle. Not at all shy, they have been staying close to the houses. Behind these charming encounters lies a far more brutal reality. Left to fend for themselves, starving, not knowing where to go and having never learnt to hunt, these two cubs have suffered the most utter distress. The young female did not survive. Found by the side of a road in a pitiful state and left to her fate without care, she died a few days later. As for the young male, now alone, he embodies all our concerns.
Emaciated, suffering from mange, disoriented, he is wasting away before everyone’s eyes. Yet, despite the warnings and the request made by One Voice, the authorities refuse to intervene. The order seems clear: let this wolf cub die.
For One Voice, this tragic situation is not an isolated incident. It is the direct consequence of an increasingly brutal French policy towards wolves.
“Their obsession is that wolves should die one after the other. The suffering of this wolf cub is the responsibility of the authorities and of a government that has bowed to lobbies whose sole aim is to kill animals,” denounces Muriel Arnal, president of One Voice.
A series of alarming cases
This tragedy comes at a particularly worrying time for wolves in France.
On 10 May, a female wolf found trapped in the Seine-Maritime region was sedated and then confined to a wildlife park following pressure from certain farmers present at the scene. One Voice immediately protested against this completely illegal decision targeting a strictly protected species and announced it would take legal action if the wolf was not released. The government then intervened, and on 13 May the prefecture announced that the wolf would be transported to the Alps to be released there.
The organisation had proposed, as it has done for the wolf cub, that the animal be taken into care at its sanctuary in Italy, a country that respects and nurtures its natural heritage, rich in biodiversity.
It is delighted that this wolf has been returned to the wild, but regrets having had to exert pressure to achieve this outcome which was the only acceptable one.
Nevertheless, a full investigation must be carried out into the traps set by a hunter in the forest of Saint-Pierre-des-Jonquières. In France, wolves live under constant threat: shootings made easy, record culling quotas, arbitrary confinement… Everything now seems designed to make their long-term survival impossible.
Only around 1,082 wolves remain on French territory, far below the viability threshold estimated by scientists at between 2,500 and 5,000. Yet up to 23% of them can now be killed each year.
A government orchestrating the decline of wolves
This policy could get even worse with Article 14 of the ‘Agricultural Protection and Sovereignty’ bill, which is due to be debated in the National Assembly on 19 May. This provision aims to create a special regime for wolves, offering less protection than that applicable to protected species, paving the way for a de facto downgrading of the species.
Under the guise of saving herds of livestock that are supposedly impossible to protect in France – even though they are being protected without problem elsewhere – the government is primarily seeking to institutionalise an ever-more-massive culling policy, even though science shows that culling does not sustainably reduce attacks on livestock.
The situation in France now appears particularly regressive compared to many European countries.
One Voice calls for immediate action
Given the cub’s alarming condition, One Voice is calling for urgent veterinary intervention and appropriate care to ensure its survival and rehabilitation.
The organisation is also calling on MPs to remove Article 14 from the draft agriculture bill and to put an end to this policy of relentless persecution of wolves.
Wolf cub in mortal danger: Press Release
A wolf cub in mortal danger in the Savoie region: in France, the persecution of wolves continues