A wolf would have attacked heifers in the department of Isere. Associations signatories take note of the declaration of the official experts affirming that there is no doubt about the identity of the predator but condemn the decision of the State to authorize the shooting of this animal.

The ministers who authorized the demolition of the wolf cannot claim that they were surprised, nor that they implemented all the possible solutions before arriving from there there. Effective solutions of startling, in particular, were not implemented.

Associations signatories invite the ministers to be seized again, to open an honest dialogue with those which studied these questions well, both in France and abroad. They ask the immediate abandonment of this beaten of another age, which will not solve of anything the question, unless the ministers do not have in the idea to sacrifice one after the other all the wolves of France.

The services of these ministers know that there are erratic wolves, apart from the zones of permanent presence. These wolves try to found new packs which will consolidate, if they are not destroyed, one still fragile natural population and of small size (a few tens in France). The wolf plan signed by the ministers claims to allow this natural restoration of a viable population: to cut down the wolves with the first disorder is surely not the best solution!

The decree of the ministers is illegal in more than one way. Not only no effective measurement was installation in the duration to prevent the renewal of the attacks, but no major economic interest is threatened: the authorities compensate each year more than 2000 sheep killed by the wolves, 4 or 5 cows do not change basically gives it. By comparison, the foot-and-mouth disease and the ESB, or their simple suspicion, led to the demolition of ten thousands of bovines.

The ministers even dare to claim that they make kill the wolf to guarantee the safety of the men whereas the same ones write and say since always with reason that the wolf is not a danger to the human ones. Associations signatories recall that, for the herds in freedom, protection by dogs triples it, shepherds and fences the night proved its effectiveness. The bovines, in the countries where the wolf well is known, are protected very effectively by electric fences.

They confirm that they include the distress of the stockbreeders in particular at the time of the first attacks and that they always pled for a total refunding of the damage and an immediate assumption of responsibility of the question by a team of technical aid while waiting for that perennial solutions are released.

SEE the POSITION OF the WWF FRANCE and FERUS ON the SHOOTINGS OF WOLVES - May 20, 2005 http://www.wwf.fr/pdf/attaquesloup.pdf

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[ from : http://www.wwf.fr/sanscom.php]

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Ministers to contact: (ministry of ecology - minister) Ministère de l’Ecologie et du Développement Durable: Mr le Ministre Serge Lepeltier 20 avenue de Ségur 75302 Paris 07 SP ministere@ecologie.gouv.fr