An extraordinary slaughter of wolves permitted in France

In the past few years, the Wolf Plan has seen the quota of individuals who can be killed go from 40 in 2017 then to 43 and then up to 50 and this year we see it rise to 100 ! The orders allowing more and more shootings of wolves has become the norm in France, and the fact that this species is protected is scarcely considered at all. With this ministerial order, we go from a ceiling of 10% to a levy of 17%. The President even dared to mention the prospect of "regulating" more wolves (at the Salon of agriculture 2019) in a joking tone ... We will not let that happen !

The public is never consulted on the principles of the project but only on the modalities

The public consultation of the ministerial decree has just ended, and the analysis of the comments by the public is uplifting: everything is there, yet nothing is taken into account, or so little. Because it is only modalities of the implementation of the decree that are discussed, not its very existence.

Last year, 2,000 people took part in the consultation, this year they are more than 9500. The results which show a decline in the percentage of defenders of wolves is however underlined. We went from 87% to 81% in the space of a year. It's true that 7695 is so much less than that of 1740! Or is it? For farmers and pastoralists who still participate, federations of hunters have also given their opinion (including the federations of other departments even without wolves).

Hunters supressed behind the barriers of "protection"!

Little comfort: the proposals from the hunters, to "regulate" the wolf species by "hunting" are swept away. They are reminded that wolves protected is a protected species, and therefore cannot be considered as a pest. Even if their population has exceeded 530 individuals, the threshold of 500 is not the upper limit, on the contrary. They would need to be five times more numerous than this to at least guarantee the future maintenance of their population.

A change in the margin for appearances

The only modification granted by the Ministry, to avoid an "excessive" "levy" (their words not ours), is the use of tracking devices during shooting operations, this will not be permitted, in view of 45 wolves already killed on July 9^th versus 15 wolves last year at the same time.

We are reminded that the number of attacks has increased between 2017 and 2018, the number of "victims" (animals raised to be slaughtered) having decreased slightly. But during this time, the number of other victims, like the wolves, increases! All animals are losers in this story.

A few months ago, our appeal on the wolf plan of 2017-2018 had been rejected by the State Council. Even though positive, this decision from the justice department to intervene would have been too late, well after the death of these wolves ...

This year, we will do everything to finally be heard! We again file an appeal to the State Council against this ministerial decree. Would it not be better for this government to save lives, and save time and energy for everyone to have not issued this kind of order from the start ?