During the Senate examination of the bill for the creation of the French Office for Biodiversity, which modifies the missions of hunters’ federations and strengthens environmental policing, Dominique ESTROSI-SASSONE, Senator from Alpes-Maritimes, presented two amendments concerning the wolf issue to address the distress of breeders, elected officials, and farmers facing recurrent attacks from a predator whose expansion has become uncontrollable.
The first amendment aims for the newly established French Office for Biodiversity to be able to give an opinion on the five-year Wolf Plan in order to adjust it based on actual conditions on the ground, rather than having to wait five years.
The second amendment requests the Government to submit a report to Parliament on the wolf counting methodology. Relying on a report commissioned by the Republican group, the senators thus defended the conclusions recommended by an expert who identified five urgent observations on which the State must act:
– An almost exponential number of attacks (in 2017, 12,000 victims were recorded, which is probably 15,000 considering unreported losses);
– A significantly underestimated number of wolves on French territory (increase in the number of presence zones detected by the ONCFS);
– A necessary revision of the Bern Convention, which is enforced too strictly in France compared to other countries;
– The need to make counting methods more reliable, accompanied by the necessity for transparency on the issue of hybridization;
– A review of the wolf population management system to stabilize its development and give breeders the right to defend their herds.
For Dominique Estrosi-Sassone: “With the threshold of 500 wolves reached to ensure the species’ survival, it is now urgent to implement a number of measures aimed at saving pastoral activity.”
