Wolves threatened by the pressure from hunters

The
return of wolves to France schematically divides hunters into three
categories. The first, marginal, is that of those who refuse to shoot
wolves, believing that these animals are apart, have a special aura
and are not “game”. We may be surprised by this radical
categorization but it exists in the minds of some.

The
second category of hunters are pleased with the return of the wolves,
considering that it is an additional “game”, whose
“exceptional nobility” promises a more interesting hunt for
the hunting parties. They arrange shooting permits issued by the
state, giving them the impression of enjoying privileges as regards
to a “protected” species.

Finally,
hunters in the third category refuse the return of wolves, arguing
that these “ferocious beasts” will eradicate “their
game”, that is to say the wild animals with hooves. These
hunters advocate a “regulation” of wolves that hides the real
desire to eradicate them, when we really know how scarce these
animals are. Many local newspapers take up these arguments or rather
the absence of arguments on these gun carriers. In the
Alpes-Maritimes, a “group of anonymous hunters” recently spoke in
the daily newspaper the Nice-Matin to proclaim the need to “regulate
the wolves if we want to preserve our species”. Leaders of hunting
federations are accustomed to making such comments.

Wolves
certainly eat deer, stags, chamois and other ungulates. It’s their
staple food, like foxes eat voles, like dolphins eat fish. Who would
have the crazy idea of wanting to “regulate” dolphins
or orcas? Like them, wolves are self-regulating predators. In the
wild, wolves do not proliferate any more than dolphins, orcas or
sharks do.

That
is to say that 500 wolves – the estimated number of wolves in France
– who naturally kill for food will never have as much impact on
nature as a million hunters who only kill for fun. Wolves certainly
take their part, a vital one, by influencing the ungulate
populations. However, they have never made them disappear. Prey and
predators have co-evolved for hundreds of thousands of years. Wolves
are part of European ecosystems, as are deer, stags, chamois and wild
boar. Yet some would like to hunt them in national parks.

In France the department of
Alpes-Maritimes is one of those which has the most wolves in the
wild, around a hundred. With a very wide range, we can estimate that
these wolves kill 2,000 wild ungulates each year for food. In
comparison, at the same time, the 7,000 hunters in the department
have officially killed 12,000 ungulates and several hundred thousand
birds and other small animals.

For
years, hunters have told us that “taking” (that is,
slaughtering) is essential for the “regulation” of wild
ungulates which, without hunters, “would proliferate”. Now
that a few wolves live in the country’s forests, these same hunters
suddenly forget the “proliferation” of ungulates to imagine
only that of wolves. The authorities reinforce this madness by
seeking to kill more and more wolves.

The
17 million hectares of French forest can accommodate many more wolves
than of present, displeasing the hunters who want to own “game”.
It is high time to abandon this word, “Game” should not
exist. There are only free animals, the property of no one. Wolves
kill by vital necessity. They do not have the choice. Hunters kill
for recreation. They have a choice. It was a hunter who killed in
2004 the last native bear in the Pyrenees, Cannelle. It is the
hunters who today threaten the survival of the few lynxes still
living in eastern France. These people must know that a forest
without a wolf, without a bear, without a lynx is like an ocean
without a dolphin, without an orca, without a shark. The hunters who
want to eliminate wolves are like fishermen who hunt for dolphins,
killer whales, they are like gravediggers amongst the living. Let’s
say it, they’re criminals.