More than 60 sheep killed by wolves in Vercors

More than 60 sheep killed by wolves in Vercors, according to a local elected official. The animals were found dead and around twenty are still missing.

Around sixty sheep from the same flock were killed in a wolf attack in a Vercors mountain pasture, according to the breeder and a local elected official who mentions "a figure never before seen for an outdoor attack".

A massive attack

In total, 64 animals were found dead and around twenty were missing, the breeder, Sébastien Robert, confirmed to AFP.

The attack allegedly occurred on the night of August 30 to 31 on the heights of the commune of Bouvante in Drôme, in the Vercors massif, where the herd of 580 animals was in the mountain pastures.

“Such a massacre in one go is a figure never before seen for an open-air attack,” declared Jean-Jacques Dallon, mayor of Oriol-en-Royans.

With other local elected officials and the representative of young farmers, the mayor of the town met the breeder this Tuesday morning.

“The French Biodiversity Office hypothesized that the attack was the result of males teaching young wolves to hunt, which explains the very deadly nature,” added Mr. Dallon, noting that the sheep were not eaten.

Request for regulation of the lupine population

“We have been saying for a decade that we need to regulate wolves much more than that,” Jean-Jacques Dallon told AFP. “Every three days, we have attacks in the Vercors and the Baronnies!”, he also said.

In France, the killing of wolves is regulated by law. It is prohibited in the natural environment, except for the purposes of defending herds. A procedure is defined for "sampling shots", i.e. independently of the attack on a herd in progress. A maximum number of wolves that can be killed is set, out of a population estimated at just over a thousand individuals.

The territories frequented by the wolf have continually expanded over ten years. They have gone from less than 10 departments to more than 60, and their attacks are a sensitive subject against a backdrop of agricultural anger.