a gray wolf was seen in Yvelines on November 11, 2021 near the town of Blaru by a hunter who took a picture of him around 7:30 a.m. The man posted his photo on Facebook. For him, no doubt, it is indeed a wolf. To be sure, the hunter still contacted the French Biodiversity Office.
The French Biodiversity Office sent specialists to the site
On site, OFB specialists studied the places where the wolf was seen and they even found traces of DNA, indicates a source to France Bleu Paris.
The OFB does not confirm but Nicolas Jean the deputy director of the French Biodiversity Office tells France Bleu Paris to have analyzed the photo of the wolf taken by the hunter. “NOTWe have confirmed the gray wolf identification in this image. For now, we don’t have his trace, we just have a picture“, said Nicolas Jean.
For him, it is therefore indeed a wolf. a lone wolf who moves a lot to find new territory.
In the fall and spring, it is the season of the “dispersal of the wolf. Wolves will leave their foster packs to seek new territory and hope to start a family“, indicates Nicolas Jean.
It has been about thirty years since officially, we had not seen a wolf in Ile-de-France even if wolves had already been spotted by the OFB in the departments bordering our region.
The Wolf Observatory denounces the lack of resources of the OFB
The Wolf Observatory, a collective that brings together specialists in flora and fauna, thinks that there have been wolves in Ile-de-France for ten years. The collective claims to have detected them in Seine-et-Marne since 2014, in Val-d’Oise and Yvelines in 2017.
Jean-Luc Valérie, founder of the collective, explains that wolves, which form new packs to reproduce, go up through the great valleys like the Seine valley. He indicates that residents often wonder about the presence of a wolf after the death of animals.
They don’t have an answer because “due to lack of resources, the OFB does not come each time on site to take readings. And when they come and have the chance to find DNA traces for example, it takes several months to have a result that will tell whether or not it is a wolf.“. In the meantime, either the wolf will be gone, or it will have settled down and reproduced,” indicates Jean-Luc Valérie.
Jean-Luc Valérie sounds the alarm. We should intervene quickly because, according to him, wolves multiply without our knowing it and when they are too numerous, the damage will be important and it will be more difficult to solve the problem.
Friday near Montfort l’Amaury, a goat and a sheep may have been killed by a wolf
An inhabitant of a hamlet near Montfort l’Amaury (Yvelines) wonders after the death of a goat and a sheep on Friday, November 19, 2021. His animals were in a field near a hamlet next to the forest of Rambouillet.
He found them dead and saw traces of fangs on his animals. He posts a message on Facebook to raise the alert in case a wolf has attacked the two animals.
He says he contacted the gendarmerie and he hopes for an investigation from the OFB.
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Is the presence of a wolf dangerous?
For Nicolas Jean deputy director of the French Biodiversity Office, the wolf, “is not _not a dangerous animal_. In the 30 years that the species made its natural return, we have not recorded any attempt to attack humans.“he said.
Nevertheless, the French Office counts 12,000 animals that were attacked “mainly ewes, goats some cattle which have been the subject of compensation under the Wolf Action Plan“Nicolas Jean told France Bleu Paris.
“The French State takes charge of the predation caused by wolves on domestic animals. There is a system put in place by the French administration to take charge of these losses.“, he specifies.
For prevent pets from getting killed if a wolf is nearby, just bring them in, says Jean-Luc Valérie of the Wolf Observatory.
If it sounds simple enough for pets or poultry, for livestock, he admits it’s a little more complicated.