Five associations help avoid wolf hunts planned for late August in the Aveyron region
This Saturday, August 31, 2024, the Aveyron prefecture was preparing to organize several wolf hunts in two of the department’s villages, all in collaboration with the French Biodiversity Agency (OFB), lieutenants of louveterie and pests and local hunting associations. The aim was to kill one or more wolves in the villages of L’Hospitalet-du-Larzac and Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon.
Given that the Aveyron region has no wolf pack on its territory, and that two dispersing wolves have already been killed between October 2023 and July 2024, these shootings demonstrate a genuine desire to eradicate wolves from the region. In the spring, the prefect even published – and then repealed thanks to the efforts of animal rights activists – an order authorizing the slaughter of stray dogs in the same villages.
Once again, the State is knowingly multiplying its attacks on the natural return of wolves outside the Alpine arc, through deliberate regulation, weakening their population and preventing the re-establishment of a favorable conservation status. Despite the fact that these two villages are considered to be “difficult to protect” (a notion increasingly used by State departments to justify the systematic and spontaneous use of shooting, to the detriment of non-lethal means of scare tactics), no attacks have been recorded for several weeks, which raises the question of the reason for this derogatory slaughter authorization.
In response to this information, a letter co-signed by several wildlife protection NGOs, including One Voice, ASPAS, FERUS, Pôle Grands Prédateurs and Focale pour le Sauvage, was sent to the Aveyron Direction départementale des territoires (DDT), helping to abort the hunting project.
We, the environmental protection associations, fear that this policy of regulating the lupine population will worsen in the future. We are sounding the alarm at the escalation of the situation, which seems to be tending towards indisputable wolf hunting on national territory and possibly throughout the European Union.