“In France, nobody knows how to hunt wolves,” says Laurent Cayrel, the prefect of the Var in south eastern France.
“In Canjuers, we organised a hunt, with 150 hunters in February, and we didn’t find a single wolf”, he explains, adding that he is now hoping to recruit “specialist hunters, why not from North America or Eastern Europe?”
The wolf is a protected species in France but to keep the number of wolves stable and prevent an increase, 22 wolves can be killed each year, up from 11 previously.
It’s estimated that there are around 250 wolves in France, and last year there were almost 6,000 cases of attacks on other animals by wolves, mostly reported by farmers.
On Monday, one angry couple, who say five of their goats have been killed by wolves in 11 months, dumped the carcass of the latest, killed on Saturday, in front of the town hall in Aups, in the Var.
Aurélie Gilloppe and Mahieu Chaffard, who keep pigs and goats in nearby Bauduen, are angry.
“We have mountain dogs, we enclose our herd of 50 goats every evening, but that is not enough,” they lamented.
