Wounded wolf in the Saône-et-Loire region: no to his slaughter
Morey, Saône-et-Loire, on the night of December 4, 2023: the department’s only remaining wolf has been wounded by a shot in his thigh after days of relentless pursuit. Since then, he has survived as best he could, on three legs. Unable as he is to jump, it would be enough to install fences, electrified nets or dogs to protect the herds. However, the farmers refuse to accept this solution, preferring to whine in the media, with the support of the prefecture, which has summoned the “wolf brigade” to shoot the wounded wolf. We ask that he not be killed and that he be entrusted to us for safekeeping in our sanctuary in Italy, where several rescued wolves already live.
Prefecture encourages slaughter
Back in the department since 2019, the wolves were all shot one after the other in 2020, 2021 and 2023. The last surviving wolf was shot last December. He has since survived with a bullet in his posterior, which prevents him from moving properly, greatly limiting his movements and ability to feed. But today, his days are numbered. The “wolf brigade” has been on the spot with great fanfare since the beginning of August to kill an already crippled animal.
Farmers oppose protection
Crippled, this lame wolf is looking for an easy way to feed and survive: livestock left unattended. For their part, farmers make no secret of the fact: they want the wolf dead. Protect their herd? That’s out of the question. For Emilie Magnin, a breeder at the bergerie de la Saugerie in Villeneuve-en-Montagne, protecting her ewes is too unpleasant: “To request a simple defense shot, the animals have to be protected, either in protective nets, where there’s little room to move, or by an electrified fence. The latter is a restrictive solution, as maintenance requires a lot of work. It delays our breeding activity. Asking for simple defense shooting is just one constraint after another, to fit into boxes”. Even though farmers receive subsidies to protect their animals.
The solution? Leave the sheep unguarded and unprotected, cry to the press when it’s too late, and demand that wolves be exterminated in the department.
We urge the authorities in Saône-et-Loire to put an end to this stalking and impose protection for the flocks. We are ready to take this wolf into our care and transfer him to our sanctuary in Italy, where he can live in complete safety, along with other survivors.
More than two weeks after our proposal to take charge of the injured wolf in the Saône-et-Loire region, we have heard nothing from the prefecture.
On September 6, the prefect announced in the press that the project was being studied. Since then, however, there has been no response to our letter, and e-mails sent to the various departments of the Direction départementale des territoires and the French Biodiversity Agency have gone unanswered.
In the meantime, the prefecture continues to hand out shooting permits to farmers, and the wolf brigade has been back in the Saône-et-Loire region since the beginning of the week to try to shoot him.
Could it be that the prefect is simply responding to the press to appease people, waiting for the wolf to be shot?
No wolf hunting in the Saône-et-Loire region! That’s what the department’s prefect announced last Friday at his new year press conference: the prefect coordinating the National Wolf Action Plan has refused to grant him authorization to shoot dead the wounded wolf.
This is fortunate, as the poor animal is already being used as a scapegoat by local livestock farmers, who are reluctant to invest in protecting the animals in their care…
Need we remind them that wolves are a protected species, and that hunting them down is unacceptable? Let’s hope that our requests are heard and that farmers assume their responsibilities towards their “prisoners”.
The wolf, crippled by a shot, had been suffering for over a year… He was in the sights of the prefecture, which had only one wish: to wipe him out, without considering alternative solutions (in particular, making breeders responsible for protecting their herds). His ordeal is over, but we could have offered him a better life, as we had proposed to the authorities of the region. The fight to save wolves harassed by shooting continues, and we remain vigilant for the other wolves, in the Saône-et-Loire region and in all other departments!