Wolf seen 300 miles SW of Paris-
Wolves in France. AFP
Wolves colonize deeper into France
January 27, 2009 — Ralph Maughan18 Responses to “Wolves colonize deeper into France”
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January 27, 2009 at 1:46 AM
A rather well kept secret (even within France) is, that France has a stable population of wolves in the “Haute Provence”, a lovely mountainous region to the north of the well known Provence of the high-society. I hope the wolves do not make it into the Pyrenaes, where hunting and poaching are more or less the same – the bears there know this very well.
January 27, 2009 at 2:39 AM
I have been looking into the recolonization of wolves in france. thanks for the post.
January 27, 2009 at 2:55 AM
For those of you brave enough to struggle with a rather complicated web-site and if you have some basic knowledge of the language, I recommend the web home of the French wolf friends: http://www.loup.org
(There is an english language version of the site available, exploiting the google translater tool – but that makes it even worse 🙂
January 27, 2009 at 5:12 AM
Thanks Peter!
January 27, 2009 at 6:15 AM
And a few short notes and news from the Wolf population in Germany: There are currently 5 established families (packs), means: 2 adults, each with pups. The total number of pubs – o better yearlings – is estimated around 20. There are always a few additional loners around, fresh over from Poland. Over the last three weeks, 3 pubs , all from the same pack, have been lost to traffic, 2 killed by cars, one by a train. The home territory of one of the packs is in danger of being eaten up by strip mining in the coming years, with adjacent territories already occupied by other packs. And, the trial against two hunters for illegal killing a wild wolf during a hunt (with a total of five gunshots!) in 2008 has been suspended. One of the culprits became seriously ill.
January 27, 2009 at 12:59 PM
Thanks Peter
I just moved from the states to the UK and I have been reading up on gray wolves in Europe and other wildlife. Here is a site on the reintroduction of European Beaver to Scotland in spring 2009 http://www.scottishbeavers.org.uk
January 27, 2009 at 1:14 PM
I tried http://www.loup.org with a translator called bablefish it worked well! thanks
January 27, 2009 at 1:34 PM
I think that is a group who sent representatives to the Annual Wolf Conference that normally takes place each April, seems like it was 2003-?. The rep. gave a lively presentation on wolves in France and the livestick producer conflicts they deal with there. Apparently the laws favor the producers though there is a more open-minded seeming attitude for wildlife there. MAybe it was another group but I remember that Europeans have a different view; one that is less lethal than the American “let’s just kill it” model.
A few years ago Carter Niemeyer went to France as a guest of the government with the intent of training their wildlife ministry~whatever it’s called~in non-lethal management techniques. The ministry personnel then came to Idaho to see how it’s done over here. That was back when the management problems seemed to be less of a primal scream ~ like it is now. I believe that the visit was documented on film.
It’s good to know that heir message gets around.
January 27, 2009 at 1:49 PM
When Carter was running things in Idaho as the representative of the USFWS, fewer livestock were killed, fewer wolves were killed and there was much less antagonism between wolf supporters and livestock interests.
It shows the difference a person can make and even more the difference moving decision making to the states made. Everything is worse now for all sides of the issue.
January 27, 2009 at 2:43 PM
Salle,
I remember the presentation. If memory serves, the young woman who presented claimed that producers were reimbursed something like 6X market value for lost livestock, which created an incentive for ranchers to “lose” sheep to wolves.
January 27, 2009 at 3:37 PM
JB,
I believe you’re right. She also made the point that the legislation provided payment for the “personal damage” (remorse of the producer for the loss of their animal)… She treated that issue like a silly notion, which it probably should be seen as in the eyes of the law.
Didn’t they also deal with preservation of bears?
January 27, 2009 at 5:43 PM
I believe so, but don’t remember the specifics. I’ve been looking for the abstracts from that conference (I think it was 2004), but can’t seem to find them. Defenders needs to do a better job of making the information presented at the conference publicly available.
January 27, 2009 at 6:14 PM
I may have the brochure from that org somewhere, but I’d have to look in my storage which isn’t a good idea right now. There’s a nasty snow storm going on and it’s all of 5F out there. I’ll see what I can find out.
January 27, 2009 at 6:40 PM
Okay, my French is rusty but after looking over the site (URL provided by Peter K) is the same group who formerly went by FERUS. Browse the site and you will find what they have been up to… I didn’t see any translation options so I had to grovel about in the French version!
January 28, 2009 at 2:58 AM
For those interested here a few links to European wolf organisations :
First link is to the site of the German wolf project (German language only)
http://www.wolfsregion-lausitz.de
The following links (all English language) point to wolf organisations in Poland,
http://www.wolf.most.org.pl
Portugal,
http://lobo.fc.ul.pt/
and Russia,
http://www.russianwolves.org/
All the sites are not updated very often because they are mostly maintained by students or biologists in their scarce spare time, but are nevertheless quite good to get a picture of the wolf scene here in Europe.
I always think carnivore conservation is not a local but a global issue! That´s why I sometimes cannot refrain from posting a comment on Ralph´s site :-))
Now let´s see if WordPress accepts so many links in a single post……
January 28, 2009 at 9:07 AM
Ok, I think my last post with a few links to web sites of European Wolf Orgs went direct into the WordPress spam bin.
I halfway expected it. So, if anybody is indeed interested in such links please feel free to contact me by e-mail.
January 28, 2009 at 12:13 PM
Peter,
It did go into spam, but I found it and pulled it out. So now your comments with the links can be read.
January 29, 2009 at 1:38 AM
Thanks Ralph for even digging deep into digital garbage! Have a nice day!