The EU is accused of doing the oddest things, but officials there will hardly compel us to re-introduce the wolf to Ireland. They have done just that in France, according to an article in a reputable journal. So far the wolves seem to be concentrated around the National Park of Mercantour, high in the Alps of Provence - north of Nice, more or less. "Wolves also kill for fun," said a woman shepherd Cathy Delprath, as she and her interviewer sat on a rock near this same park, having lunch. Suddenly a flock of crows swooped down nearby. The wolf doesn't distinguish between the National Park and surroundings. "Wolves kill in the night and next day the vultures and I find the carcases." The shepherd and interviewer were in an area "now controlled by 40 to 50 wolves."
Locals haven't a good word to say for the machine that made the re-introduction of wolves a priority - the French Environment Ministry backed by the EU. Life has been made easy for the wolves and hard for the sheep-rearers, locals say. Michel Barengo, the farmer for whom Cathy Delpath works, says that instead of looking after his sheep, she counts carcases for the bureaucrats in Paris and Brussels. "If I tell you that I have lost 14 sheep this week and that it comes to more than 275 sheep in five years, would that make sense to a. . . Greenpeace journalist like you?" Money is paid out in compensation, of course.
Barengo had bought a Pyreneean sheepdog (big, shambling white creatures). It had been with the flocks from the age of seven weeks. One night a pack of wolves attacked the house. There was clamour for a long time. Eventually the shepherd found the dog, now three years old, dying. The farmer got 5,000 French francs compensation (say £590) "from the Environment Ministry in Paris or was it the EU. . . anyway the dog was dead." Local people are enraged at the wolf experiment. They have taken thousands of sheep into Nice to make their point and the National Park is regularly vandalised. The farmer Barengo says his business is going down the tubes.
And all this for a EU-funded study of wolves under the EU Wildlife Programme called LIFE - which "seeks eventually to ensure a lasting return of the wolf to French territory and to favour its social acceptance". (Social acceptance is good.)
This article by Mogens Cuber of Denmark is from EUROP Magazine of the wonderful Journalistes en Europe programme, founded by Philippe Viannay with Beuve-Mery of Le Monde. Viannay also founded the Glenans Sailing Club, well known here.