(Lyon) The government announced on Wednesday that it had finalized the new wolf plan with, as desired by breeders, relaxed rules for shooting animals threatening herds, to the great dismay of environmental defense associations.
“We will have a shooting order by the end of the week, which is simplified in accordance with the requests that had been made by many breeders,” declared the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau on Wednesday during a press conference. organized three days before the Agricultural Show, in a context of revolt among the farming world.
According to the minister, the 2024-2029 wolf plan was presented on Tuesday “in its final version”. The prefecture of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes described it in a press release as a plan “concerned with the preservation of extensive and pastoral livestock farming” thanks in particular to “a revised shooting protocol”, a new “estimation method of the lupine population” or even “an increase from 11 to 32/33% of the compensation scales for direct losses of affected breeders”.
Supposed to represent a “turning point” towards a “better balance” between protection of herds and conservation of this threatened species, this text must replace the previous plan which expired at the end of 2023.
“There is progress and positive things (…), we remain cautious, but these announcements are going in the right direction,” reacted to AFP Michèle Boudoin, president of the National Sheep Federation (FNO), specialized branch of the FNSEA.
“We are simply trying to protect our herds,” she added, indicating that the FNO would be received at the ministry on Wednesday afternoon “to clarify” the plan. It was not possible to obtain details of this meeting.
For their part, environmental defense associations, which slammed the door on negotiations last fall, say they are “disappointed” and “worried”.
“Simplifying shooting is sending a very bad signal and it is not acceptable,” criticized AFP Cédric Marteau, general director of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), who said “think the means of countering » the plan and the order, including through legal means.
“Crazy method”
“This will lead to being able to shoot more wolves and this particularly worries us, because we know that breeders have the ambition to increase the quota of wolves” to be killed each year, indicated Sandrine Bélier of the Humanity and Biodiversity association. .
Increasing the shootings “will absolutely not solve the problem,” according to her. “Worse, it risks even making it worse by further dispersing the packs, which will lead to more attacks by lone wolves,” adds Mr. Marteau.
These two associations also denounce the government’s “crazy method”.
“We were made to believe that the debate was open, but neither the public consultation nor the opinion of the National Nature Protection Council (CNPN) were taken into account. We have the impression of preaching to the wind,” laments Cédric Marteau, calling for the launch of a “real public debate” and to “listen more to what science says” rather than “always giving in to those who scream.”
A version presented in September – criticized by both environmental organizations and breeders – already provided for a simplification of shooting protocols intended to kill wolves attacking herds.
More than a month after the public consultation closed, six departments of the South-East sent a letter to the Minister of Agriculture to denounce the “inaction” of the authorities and demand an “acceleration of the application of reinforced measures of protection of herds and sectors”.
“We are dismayed by this inaction and by this paralysis of public action while the crisis linked to the Lupine attacks did not appear suddenly, but has gradually worsened over the last few years,” their letter said.
After disappearing for a while in France, the wolf, a strictly protected species, reappeared in the early 1990s crossing the Alps from Italy, and its ranks gradually grew. Their number was estimated at the beginning of September at 1104. With a shooting quota of 19% of the lupine population per year, up to 209 wolves can currently be killed in France. Breeders deplored more than 12,000 heads of cattle attacked in 2022.