Jura, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence: One Voice is coming to the rescue for wolves against prefects

It is a very far-fetched prefectural note that the Jura and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Prefectures have pulled out of their hat to authorise these shots against wolves on 19 December 2022 and 3 January 2023. According to the document from 28 June 2019, some herds would be ‘unprotectable’ in nature, and their owners could therefore be allowed to kill wolves to protect them without having carried out a preliminary analysis, simply because the farm animals in question are bovine. The problem: this law contradicts a ministerial decree that well and truly obliges farmers to establish the non-protectability of herds on a case-by-case basis. So without differentiating between cows and sheep.

As we have in other cases, One Voice has filed an emergency suspension interim proceeding. With continual laws authorising shots, the decrees do not sufficiently demonstrate the existence of a risk of significant damage for the farms concerned in our opinion, do not make reference to any analysis carried out case-by-case, and they exonerate farmers from implementing protection measures.

Clearly, the primary — and real! Why are we even asking? — goal of these decrees is not to protect the herd animals, but actually to kill as many wolves as possible! Does the state want to exterminate them? Can they not find other ways to help farmers and calm their irrational fear of a population who, for the most part, has never seen any wolves living freely? Beyond the tragedy that this will represent for wolves and their ecosystem, incidentally can we really continue to believe that their extinction will help farmers to face up to their difficulties? Wolves’ impact is ridiculously low. All herd animals are destined for the abattoir…

There were tens of thousands of them in our country in the Middle Ages. There are just 921 wolves today and their species is still not viable. As proof: they are classified as vulnerable. However, each year, the number of wolves that humans are authorised to slaughter increases. We already reported this to the State Council in 2022, a year in which the government organised the massacre of 118 of them. This year, 174 could be killed. Two of them already have been as recently as mid-January. Rather than assassinating them en masse, the authorities must find alternative solutions and be pleased about the presence of these great predators in our country, who play an essential role in the ecosystems as well as being sensitive, intelligent beings with socially complex lives.

One Voice is requesting an immediate suspension of the six decrees authorising simple defence shots issued by the Jura Prefecture and the one issued by the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Prefect. It is already scandalous that, under false pretences, wolves get shot completely legally. We can no longer allow this massacre that violates the law to take yet more victims.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice