myAround a thousand wolves live in the national territory. 68 million human beings, 16 million cattle, 7 million sheep, and 1 million horses of all kinds live there. A thousand wolves, therefore, roam discreetly through the forests and mountains of a country of 55 million hectares. There are very few wolves per square kilometer, but there are already too many. France is one of the twenty Member States of the European Union (EU) that welcomed, on September 25, the Commission’s proposal to reduce the level of protection of the large carnivore.
In early December, the Berne Convention steering committee (where the EU has the majority) is expected to approve canine lupus from strict protection status to simple protection. In that case, the “Habitats” directive, which transposes the provisions of the Berne Convention, will have to be amended. This promises to be interesting: Article 19 of the directive in question establishes that any modification of its Annex IV (the list of strictly protected species) can only take place in the event of new data. “scientific and technical”, and by unanimity of the Member States. The problem is that today there is no unanimity among the Member States or new data.
Once these obstacles are overcome, we will be able to “shoot” the wolves with much less embarrassment. However, under “strict protection”, around 200 people die in France a year, that is, 20% of the entire population. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine what will happen when the levees are lowered.
France has taken a step forward
The European decision not only worries about the sustainability of lupine populations, but also sets a precedent that crystallizes the fragility of the political will to safeguard what remains of nature in the Old Continent. The degradation of canine lupus Firstly, it establishes the possibility that at the highest level of the community institutions a personal crusade – that of President Ursula von der Leyen – could prevail over any other consideration. As many commentators have pointed out, it is precisely since the death of his pony Dolly, killed by a wolf at the canonical age of 30, that the European executive decided to have the canine’s skin.
Like other member states in the hands of conservative governments, France has filled the gap to ask for a downgrade in turn. “This is not a demotion but a reclassification in accordance with the state of the science.” explained in January the environment of Marc Fesneau, then Minister of Agriculture, with this inimitable way of trampling on science by claiming to be part of it. In fact, the collective expert opinion on the subject, prepared in March 2017 by the National Museum of Natural History and the French Biodiversity Office, estimates that, to reach the threshold of long-term viability in a territory like France, “the order of magnitude that corresponds to a minimum number to be reached is of the order of 2,500 to 5,000 sexually mature individuals”. Or two to five times more than our 1,000 wolves now on parole.
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