# Wolves at a French Buffet: Situation appraisal for livestock farmers challenged by wolves for the past 25 years

Michel Meuret

► To cite this version:

Michel Meuret. Wolves at a French Buffet: Situation appraisal for livestock farmers challenged by wolves for the past 25 years. Grazing resources, large carnivores and local communities, Aug 2017, Oslo, Norway. 35 p. hal-01606800

HAL Id: hal-01606800

https://hal.science/hal-01606800v1

Submitted on 5 Jun 2020

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# Wolves at a French Buffet

Situation appraisal for livestock farmers challenged by wolves
for the past 25 years

Michel Meuret

PhD - Research director at INRA, UMR Selmet, Montpellier, France
After their disappearance in the 1930s, wolves came back to France in 1992; most of them coming from Italy within the Mercantour National Park (Provence)

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Photo credits: Parc National du Mercantour 2
## Wolf is strictly protected species in France

In 1990, France ratified the international Bern Convention about the Conservation of Wildlife and Natural Habitats in Europe.

In 1992, France began to implement the EU Habitat Directive, that is the legal duty of conserving outstanding wildlife habitats and their species, *Canis lupus* included.

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'French' wolves benefit from the prohibition of any form of deliberate perturbation, capture or killing.
Wolf return was expected and saluted by some as a
“Victory for Nature!”

The President of ‘France Nature Environment’, the national Federation
of Nature preservation associations from France, called for the fight:

"To fight for a free and wild wolf is to fight against all
confinements, walls, prisons of all kinds, and against the
impoverishment of the biodiversity. [...] Without this super-
predator, our mountains and forest ecosystems are
bastardizing, turning into open poultry houses. Life needs
the wolf, the man needs life." (Brard 1996).

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An example of "open poultry house" in the Southern French Alps

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Photo credits:
Philippe Lemoine
France is located at a crossroads of wolves' recovery plans in Europe

Three wolf dispersion corridors should cross the entire eastern side of France.

The South-East of the country, with a number of almost contiguous nature parks, is seen as highly favorable to the connection between subpopulations in Europe.

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Source of data: presence 2010-12

European Commission

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Ongoing projects within the EU to promote better conservation of the wolf species (LCIE & Rewilding Europe, unpublished)
The concern is that Eastern part of France is made of emblematic landscape owe to grazing livestock farming. For centuries, grazing practices have largely contributed to shaping the biological richness of the countryside.

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## Wolf presence in 2015

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Office National
de la Chasse
et de la Faune Sauvage

Data source:
National Hunting and
Wildlife Service

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Livestock protective measures
with multiple constraints
Since 1997, measures to protect herds have been encouraged and financed by French authorities on the basis of EU funds.

They have been progressively generalized.

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Numbers of livestock farmers that are protecting their herd against wolves in France

Data source: DRAAF Rhône-Alpes
## Protective measure A – The Assistant Shepherd

About 70-80 % of the total budget of protective measures.

His/her job is to relieve the shepherd or farmer-herder for additional tasks related to protection against wolves (100-200 working hours/month).

Unquestionable utility, despite critical constraints when it needs to share a small mountain cabin.

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Photo credits: GIEC Pastoralisme
Protective measure B – Livestock Guard Dogs

LGDs were introduced urgently in Provence and in the Alps from the end of
the 1990s.

~ 3.000 to 4.000 dogs are currently present in France.

The effectiveness of guard dogs begins
with a minimum of two dogs per herd or
per batch of grazing livestock.

Some farms needs to have 10 to 14 dogs!

LGDs become a major concern in France for
the multi-use of the countryside: public safety
problem.

<figure><img src="image_21.png" /></figure>

Photo credits: Elisa Gilbert
Protective measure C – The Compulsory Night Pen

*Postulate*: A herd locked up at night under the guard of humans and dogs no longer undergoes attack.

This compulsory practice:

- decreases the daily available grazing time;

- disrupts the seasonal and daily herding adjustments;

- increases the erosive impact of stamping fragile soils.

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Photo credits: M. Meuret
What kind of results?
<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>Number of wolves and livestock victims in France : 1992-2016</figcaption></figure>

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Data source:
DREAL Auvergne
Rhônes- Alpes
...Without speaking about the farmers' and herders' distress

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How to explain the large and constant increase in the number of victims during the last seven years?
Hypothesis #1

The colonization of wolves reached new territories with farmers poorly prepared or unprepared to protect their flocks.

Not valided

Livestock farmers in the seven initial regions of wolves' presence still suffer 90% of the total losses.

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## Hypothesis #2

Suspicion of farmers who "do not play the game of protection": they benefit from the financial aid granted but only put in very partial protective measures.

Not valided

In Provence and in the Alps, most of victims belonged to protected herds.

Data source: GeoLoup database, DREAL Rhône-Alpes, data analysis by CERPAM

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Another consequence of wolf predation impacts the use of grazing places
in the presence of wolves

* According to herders, a herd keeps the memory of the grazing place where the majority of its individuals have been stressed by an attack

* Most animals refuse to stop there again to graze, preferring to pass as quickly as possible

* Such "event memory" persists at least for two to three years;

* These places are lost areas for grazing, even if the fodder resources are fresh, abundant and usually appreciated.
The failure of protective measures: explanation
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Do we miss something?

France is the European country that has implemented one of the most elaborate livestock protection against wolf predation.

However, France appears to suffer the most livestock losses in the World (10.000 victims/year = 30 times higher than in the US Northern Rockies ...having 1.700 wolves).
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Strictly protected wolves have adapted easily to favorable conditions in France
We simply miss to consider wolves as they are in real:
very effective and adaptable predators

✓ Very smart

✓ Opportunistic

✓ Capable of learning...

✓ ...within families

✓ Highly adaptable

✓ Often unpredictable

✓ Mobile and prolific

Mech and Boitani 2003

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Their adaptive capacity is illustrated in France with the shift from predation at night (when flocks are penned and in the custody of guard dogs and humans) to attacks during daytime.

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Data source: GeoLoup database, DREAL Rhône-Alpes, data analysis by CERPAM

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Another sign of adaptation: while predation still occurs in high mountain summer pastures, more and more attacks are now also carried on during almost the four seasons, in inhabited valleys and low lands where the absence of snow allows grazing all year round.

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Photo credits: Sylvie Arnaud / La Provence
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This behavioral adaptation of wolves to favorable conditions is natural.

Unfortunately, it was not anticipated in France.

"The wolf fears humans" is a hackneyed assertion transposed from countries where wolves are abundant (Canada, Russia, Romania...). In these countries, humans with guns and traps have for many years actively regulated wolf populations, when wolves – and other predators – come close to humans and domestic animals.

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Photo credits: Nicolas Lescureux
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What kind of Humans do wolves fear?

French mountains and hills are full with numerous and diverse humans: hikers, skiers, bikers and herders, the latter only provided with good mountain shoes and binoculars.

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The first postulate underlying herd protection measures is clearly wrong ...when it has been applied in France:

*"An additional and continuous human presence with the herd is sufficient to keep the wolves at bay."*

Our Assistant Shepherds are not in a position to signify clearly enough to the wolves that they represent any serious kind of threat.

They are innocuous humans ...among so many others.

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Photo credits: Roger Minard
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The key premise of coexistence between wolves and humans would be possible only if the strictly protected status of wolves, according to the EU Habitats Directive and International Berne Convention, was deeply revised.

Livestock guard dogs, electrified and strong fences, red fladries, etc., as barriers ...simply foster wolf creativity far more than they show wolves the limits not to be crossed for their safety.

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From evidences elsewhere in the world, we conclude that the coexistence between livestock farming and wolves needs the establishment of **reciprocal relationships** in order to maintain an acceptable distance.

(Lescureux, Garde and Meuret, in press)

This reciprocity may include shooting and trapping in the event of attacks, eliminating the most reckless individuals or groups, sometimes even entire packs.

The aim is to learn 'French' wolves to associate danger with closeness to humans and domestic herds.
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PEOPLE AND CARNIVORES

Solutions that work for people, land and wildlife

http://www.peopleandcarnivores.org

Matt Barnes

<figure><img src="image_47.png" /><figcaption>Applied rangeland scientist and conservationist</figcaption></figure>

✓ The wolves need to associate cattle or sheep with humans, and humans with danger.

✓ People can chase wolves off, but they need to be convincing, as well as persistent.

✓ Once a wolf or bear has gotten a food reward, they are much harder to chase off.
The alternative solution could be:
New
habitat
for our
livestock

(all year round)

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And the end of this

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