Faced with wolf attacks in the Jura, breeders are demanding to be able to hunt the animal

Should wolf hunting be opened in the Jura massif? Three years after their return, many farmers are asking themselves the question following the nighttime wolf attacks that continue, despite protective measures.

These attacks concern sheep, but now also cows whose milk is used to make Comté. This summer, around twenty attacks on cattle by wolves were recorded in the Jura massif alone, with a dozen animals killed and around thirty injured. Although this may seem small compared to livestock, these attacks traumatize farmers who are asking for solutions.

François is a breeder of Montbéliarde cows in Chasnans, in the middle of Doubs, where the wolf had never shown the tip of its nose until the beginning of this month. He shows a photo of his heifer, as he found her one morning in early September. : “A shoulder torn off, a throat slit open, and a thigh torn off by the fangs as well.” According to veterinarians, this 150-year-old heifer kilos was killed by a single wolf.

After this attack, all the herds, his own and those of the neighbors, returned to the stable in a state of stress. Just like the farmer, who does not understand what happened the next day: “We were told to scare the wolf, two hunters kept watch at night. And when the wolves returned to the herd, there were scare shots, the hunters fired in the air and the wolves left.” François wonders why the wolf hunters, responsible for regulating wild fauna, did not kill this wolf who returned the next day to the scene of the crime.

For the breeder, all wolves must be eliminated. “Today it’s our cows that are being attacked, tomorrow it will be our farm dogs, and maybe why not the walkers”he fears, recalling that his “ancestors exterminated them because things were not going well.” And to ask this question: “Why bring them back today? ?”

Currently, a wolf that attacks a herd can be killed if there have been several attacks. This is what happened recently in Mouthe, about fifty kilometers away, in Julien’s herd : “Two attacks in one week on two different herds, a few kilometers apart.”

“The first attack took place very close to our farm, and the second very close to a hostel where there are tourists.”

Julien, cattle breeder in Doubs

to franceinfo

There, a she-wolf was killed by a defensive shot, during her third attack. : “It was a very controlled shot, completely legal in an attacking situation.says Julien, We are all sad to have to kill a wolf or something, but we also have to regulate. It’s the only way, we’ve been putting a lot of things in place for three years, but despite all that, the attacks still happen.”

These controlled shootings against wolves are nevertheless contested by associations wildlife protection organizations, such as Ferus, which has already won in the first instance against previous shooting permits. For Natacha Bigan, coordinator for the Jura massif, killing wolves is illegal because they are a protected species. But above all, it is useless : “This is really a fear that we hear a lot from breeders, who think that if we don’t react immediately, we’ll end up with a wolf behind every grove. It’s impossible, large predators can’t swarm, they’ll self-regulate.”

“Once they have occupied the entire massif, the wolves will go elsewhere. Their numbers will increase, then they will stabilize for years.”

Natacha Bigan, Ferus coordinator for the Jura massif

to franceinfo

Other solutions have been thought of to make the wolf and cows coexist.There has been much talk of patou dogs, these particularly effective shepherd dogs, in the Alps or the Pyrenees. There are also some in the Jura, but many breeders are reluctant to let patous roam free in their pastures. These meadows are sometimes adjacent to forests, where walkers and mushroom pickers also pass, and the patou could attack them.

Among the alternatives being tested this summer in the Jura, Another breeder, François-Henri Pagner, who is also an FDSEA representative at the Chamber of Agriculture, experimented with the anti-wolf collar. “If the animal is disturbed by a wolf presence, it will start to run, the collar will go into action by releasing ultrasounds and lights supposed to scare the wolfhe explains. Of the 25 farms testing this collar, there have so far been no wolf attacks on collar wearers.”

The experiment therefore seems positive, even if it is not known whether the collars have actually prevented attacks. The breeders also fear that the wolf adapts to this device as it has already managed to thwart other means of protection.

The best means of protection remains the simplest and the most complicated at the same time : human presence. This summer, several dozen volunteers came to the massif to spend one or more nights in the summer pastures near the herds, like Pierre, a civil servant and activist in the Pastoraloup program: “We have flashlights, whistles, but we’re not going to throw ourselves into the lion’s den either…” But this apparently effective system requires hundreds, even thousands, of volunteers.