The Return of the Wolf: Protecting and Managing the Predator’s Presence in the Ardennes

2023-09-30 06:47:15

The last known wolf was killed in 1897 in Erezée, but it seems that there were wolves in the Ardennes until 1917.

Over the centuries, the wolf has been hunted because it is a large predator which is used in livestock farming. Since 1979, the wolf has been protected by Berne Convention, a European directive that requires states to protect wild species and their habitats. As a result, the wolf is no longer hunted over a vast and continuous territory.

At the end of the 90s, France faced a new phenomenon. Flocks of sheep are attacked by wolves 1000 km from us. Questions then arise: will the wolf reach Belgium? And would he manage to live in our forests?

Environmentalist associations like the “Rangers” spoke in the 2000s ofan optimal environmentl” for the wolf and underlines its regulatory role among game populations. On the side of the Walloon administration, we had a different opinion at that time: “lThe wolf could not adapt to these highly artificial forests“.

Some hunters also have reservations. The wolf risksdisrupt the ecosystem and disrupt the management of hunting territories“It cannot be regulated itself: “the wolf is not even a game animal, within the meaning of the hunting law and as it is a mammal living naturally in the wild in the Walloon region, it benefits from protection“, declares a hunter in one of our RTBF archives.

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