French farmers bring sheep to protest

Saturday, January 31, 2015

To protest against rising wolf attacks, French farmers brought about 300 sheep to graze at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in late November, ABC News reports. Wolves in France were nearly hunted to extinction in the 1930s but returned in the 1990s, travelling from Italy. Though the wolf population is currently estimated to only be 300, as of August there had already been more than 4,800 wolf attacks in 2014, mostly on sheep. One farmer said that the threat of wolf attacks is, "omnipresent and oppressive; farmers around me feel helpless."

In an International Business Times article, Serge Preveraud, president of the National Ovine Federation, said that, "we wanted to show authorities how absurd the wolf is. And since we can no longer protect our flock, we are going to ask the government to keep them." France approved culling 24 wolves in 2014. BF