France to step up wolf culls as population surges

JUNE 7, 2019

by Amélie Bottollier-Depois

Wolf populations in the wild jumped in France last year, a faster-than-expected increase that will prompt the government to increase hunting quotas and take other measures to protect livestock herds, officials said Friday.

The ONCFS hunting and wildlife agency said on-the-ground tracking and mathematical modelling had determined 479 to 578 adult wolves on French territory during this year's winter count, or an average of 530.

It was a 23 percent jump from the average of 430 adults counted the previous winter.

Wolves were hunted to extinction in France by the 1930s, but gradually started reappearing in the 1990s as populations spread across the Alps from Italy.

They are now found mainly in the Alps and other mountainous regions of the southeast, where most of the recent pack increases were found, as well as in pockets of central France.

But wolves have also been detected recently in the Pyrenees mountains that separate France and Spain.

The population growth has infuriated French farmers who say the predators are decimating their flocks, despite a series of measures financed by the state to limit the damage and compensation owners for losses.

Last year 3,674 wolf attacks led to the deaths of some 12,500 animals, mainly sheep.

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Mutilated dolphins wash up on French coast in record numbers

Activists say 1,100 dolphins found since January - but real figure may be 10 times higher

Kim Willsher in Paris

Sun 31 Mar 2019 11.51 BSTLast modified on Sun 31 Mar 2019 17.55 BST

A record number of dolphins have washed up on France’s Atlantic coast in the last three months, many with devastating injures.

Environmental campaigners say 1,100 mutilated dolphins have been found since January, but the real figure could be 10 times higher as many bodies sink without trace. Activists warn the marine slaughter could threaten the extinction of the European dolphin population in the region.

The cause of the deaths is not known but it is thought fishing trawlers catching sea bass off the Atlantic coast may be responsible. Autopsies suggest the dolphins sustain catastrophic injuries attempting to escape nets or when trawler crew attempt to cut them free after they are caught.

Experts at the Observatoire Pelagis, a marine research station at La Rochelle, said the dead mammals showed “extreme levels of mutilation”.

Lamya Essemlali, the president of the ecology campaign group Sea Shepherd, said the real death toll was probably between 6,500 and 10,000 dolphins a year.

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Roar deal: tiny lion cub found caged in Marseille garage

Lion cub, about two months old, second to be seized by French authorities this week

Agence France-Presse in Marseille

Fri 26 Oct 2018 20.16 BSTLast modified on Fri 26 Oct 2018 20.34 BST

French customs agents have discovered a lion cub in a car garage in the southern city of Marseille, they said on Friday – days after another was found in the Paris suburbs.

The tiny cub, weighing just a few kilos, was found on Wednesday inside a pet’s travel cage in a garage to the city’s north. She is believed to be one to two months old, said Bruno Hamon, deputy chief of Marseille’s customs office.

A garage employee, who was temporarily detained by customs agents, said only that he had taken the cub from a Marseille building after its former owners said they were overwhelmed by the situation.

The animal was handed to the SPA animal protection charity, which has passed her on to a specialist NGO which works to shelter wild animals, customs officials said in a statement.

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Giant Hammerhead Worms Have Been Invading France for Decades

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | May 22, 2018 01:04pm ET

For nearly two decades, sizable, squishy invaders have been stealthily infiltrating French ecosystems and preying on small, soil-dwelling creatures.

The invaders are giant hammerhead flatworms — brightly colored specimens that look like earthworms on steroids. They have muscular, colorful bodies topped with elongated heads resembling those of hammerhead sharks, though on a much smaller scale. The worms can measure more than 1 foot (40 centimeters) in length, and they occupy a range of ecosystems on land, gobbling up earthworms and other invertebrate prey.

And for almost 20 years, five invasive species of these worms have been detected in parts of France and in French territories, according to a new study collecting reports of sightings dating back to 1999. Though the worms were first spotted decades ago, this is the first study to investigate the extent of their invasion and to question what it might mean for the ecosystems that they overrun. [In Photos: Worm Grows Heads and Brains of Other Species]

Read more  

France to let wolf population grow despite farmers' fears

19 February 2018

France is to allow the wolf population to grow from about 360 now to 500 by 2023, despite protests from farmers worried about their livestock.

A new plan announced by the government represents a rise of nearly 40% in the wolf population.

After being eradicated by hunters in the 1930s, the wolf made its way back into France from Italy in the 1990s.

Wolves are listed as a protected species by the Bern Convention that France has signed up to.

Animal rights groups had been pushing for a more radical proposal and accused ministers of lacking political courage.

In a gesture to farmers, the government said that hunters in France would still be allowed to cull 40 wolves this year, the same as in 2017. Up to 10% of the wolf population could be culled every year from 2019, and that proportion could rise to 12% if more frequent wolf attacks were registered.

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World's longest sauropod dinosaur trackway brought to light

November 14, 2017

In 2009, the world's largest dinosaur tracks were discovered in the French village of Plagne, in the Jura Mountains. Since then, a series of excavations at the site has uncovered other tracks, sprawling over more than 150 meters. They form the longest sauropod trackway ever to be found. Having compiled and analyzed the collected data, which is published in Geobios, scientists from the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon (CNRS / ENS de Lyon / Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University), the Laboratoire Magmas et Volcans (CNRS / Université Clermont Auvergne / Université Jean Monnet / IRD), and the Pterosaur Beach Museum conclude these tracks were left 150 million years ago by a dinosaur at least 35 m long and weighing no less than 35 t.

In 2009, when sauropod tracks were discovered in the French village of Plagne—near Lyon—the news went round the world. After two members of the Oyonnax Naturalists' Society spotted them, scientists from the Paléoenvironnements et Paléobiosphère research unit (CNRS / Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University) confirmed these tracks were the longest in the world.

Between 2010 and 2012, researchers from the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon supervised digs at the site, a meadow covering three hectares. Their work unearthed many more dinosaur footprints and trackways. It turns out the prints found in 2009 are part of a 110-step trackway that extends over 155 m—a world record for sauropods, which were the largest of the dinosaurs.

Dating of the limestone layers reveals that the trackway was formed 150 million years ago, during the Early Tithonian Age of the Jurassic Period. At that time, the Plagne site lay on a vast carbonate platform bathed in a warm, shallow sea. The presence of large dinosaurs indicates the region must have been studded with many islands that offered enough vegetation to sustain the animals. Land bridges emerged when the sea level lowered, connecting the islands and allowing the giant vertebrates to migrate from dry land in the Rhenish Massif.

Read more at: 

Earliest relative of Brachiosaurus dinosaur found in France

May 2, 2017 by Colin Smith

Scientists have re-examined an overlooked museum fossil and discovered that it is the earliest member of the titanosauriform family of dinosaurs.

The fossil, which the researchers from Imperial College London and their colleagues in Europe have named Vouivria damparisensis, has been identified as a brachiosaurid sauropod dinosaur.

The researchers suggest the age of Vouivria is around 160 million years old, making it the earliest known fossil from the titanosauriform family of dinosaurs, which includes better-known dinosaurs such as the Brachiosaurus. When the fossil was first discovered in France in the 1930s, its species was not identified, and until now it has largely been ignored in scientific literature.

The new analysis of the fossil indicates that Vouivria died at an early age, weighed around 15,000 kilograms and was over 15 metres long, which is roughly 1.5 times the size of a double-decker bus in the UK.

It had a long neck held at around a 45 degree angle, a long tail, and four legs of equal length. It would have been a plant eater.

Dr Philip Mannion, the lead author of the study from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, said: "Vouivria would have been a herbivore, eating all kinds of vegetation, such as ferns and conifers. This creature lived in the Late Jurassic, around 160 million years ago, at a time when Europe was a series of islands. We don't know what this creature died from, but millions of years later it is providing important evidence to help us understand in more detail the evolution of brachiosaurid sauropods and a much bigger group of dinosaurs that they belonged to, called titanosauriforms."

Read more at:

Poachers break into Paris zoo, shoot rhino dead and steal its horn

Four-year-old rhinoceros named Vince found with three bullets to head at Thoiry Zoo 

Katie Forster

A rhinoceros at a zoo near Paris was shot three times in the head on Monday night by poachers who then cut off its horn with a chainsaw.

The four-year-old rhinoceros, named Vince, was found dead by keepers at Thoiry Zoo, to the west of the French capital.

One or more poachers are believed to have broken in to the zoo and forced their way into an enclosure where three rhinos lived, reported Le Parisien. 


The white rhinoceros's second horn had also been partially hacked off, indicating the perpetrators had run out of time or their equipment had failed.

They may have also planned to steal the horns of the two other white rhinos, five-year-old Bruno and 37-year-old Gracie. Both animals are said to be safe and healthy.

Vince was born on in September 2012 at Burgers' Zoo in the Netherlands. He arrived in Paris in March 2015 with Bruno.

Rhinoceros horns can be sold on the black market for around £30,000 each and are particularly sought after in China, where they are believed to have aphrodisiac qualities.



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4 years old.  You callous, cowardly bastards.  Shame on you and those who pay you your blood money.  Just remember that karma has no menu; you get served what you deserve.

Corn turning French hamsters into deranged cannibals: research

January 27, 2017 by Marlowe Hood

 

 The major consumption of corn leads to infanticide among the Great hamster, a rodent threatened in Alsace, according to a recent study highlighting "problems related to monoculture"

A diet of corn is turning wild hamsters in northeastern France into deranged cannibals that devour their offspring, alarmed researchers have reported.


"There's clearly an imbalance," Gerard Baumgart, President of the Research Centre for Environmental Protection in Alsace, and an expert on the European hamster, told AFP on Friday.

"Our hamster habitat is collapsing."

More common farther to the east, Cricetus cricetus in critically endangered in western Europe.

The findings, reported last week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, finger industrial-scale monoculture as the culprit.

Once nourished by a variety of grains, roots and insects, the burrowing rodents live today in a semi-sterile and unbroken ocean of industrially grown maize, or corn.

The monotonous diet is leaving the animals starving, scientists discovered almost by accident.

The problem is a lack of vitamins. In fact, one in particular: B3, or niacin.

Researchers led by Mathilde Tissier at the University of Strasbourg had set out to determine whether hamster diet affects their ability to reproduce in the wild.

Baby hamsters eaten alive

Earlier work had looked at the impact of pesticides and mechanised ploughing, which can destroy their underground homes, especially during hibernation in winter.

But the possible link with what they eat remained unexplored.

A first set of lab experiments with wild specimens compared wheat and corn-based diets, with side dishes of clover or worms.

There was virtually no difference in the number of pups born, or the basic nutritional value of the different menus.

Read more at:

Saving bees: France's thriving city hives offer token help

August 11, 2016 by David Courbet

Beehives in the French countryside are showing a distressing rate of "dead-outs"—deserted honeycombs pointing to dwindling bee populations

Urban rooftops are buzzing across France, but the fad for beekeeping from Montpellier to Lille to Paris—including atop AFP's headquarters—will do little do reverse declining bee populations, experts say.

The northern city of Lille was a pioneer in efforts to defend the bee by providing pesticide-free environments, and it was among the first to sign on to a national public awareness campaign, "Bees, Sentinels of the Environment", back in 2007.

Since then, 80 species of wild bees that had disappeared from the Lille area have returned.

"In terms of diversity, 2015 was a good year," says Lise Daleux, the city's top environmental official, noting that three rare wild bee species were spotted.

Lille's free course on bees at the city's rail station, with its 10 hives, has a two-year waiting list, and in 2008 it became the first French city to appoint a municipal apiculture pointman.

The southern city of Montpellier also caught the buzz early, installing beehives on the roofs of many high schools.

Read more at: 

France bans imports of lion hunt trophies

Officials told to stop issuing import permits for lion heads, paws and skins, while country considers stricter controls on other species

Adam Vaughan

Thursday 19 November 2015 12.17 GMTLast modified on Thursday 19 November 201522.07 GMT

France has banned the import of lion heads, paws and skins as hunters’ trophies, nearly four months after the killing of Zimbabwe’s most famous lion by an American trophy hunter sparked international outrage.

In a letter to the actor and animals rights activist Brigitte Bardot, France’s environment minister, Ségolène Royal, said that she had instructed officials to stop issuing permits for lion trophies and was considering stricter controls on trophies from other species.

“Following your letter and recent visits in Africa in preparation of the climate summit in Paris, I want to let you know I have given orders to my services to stop delivering certificates for importing lion trophies,” Royal wrote in the letter dated 12 November.

“Concerning other species trophies, I am in favour of a much stronger control for hunting trophies and this issue will be discussed with all the countries concerned and with the EU.”

In July, conservationists and MEPs called for an EU-wide ban on the import of lion trophies following the death of Cecil the lion at the hands of a Minnesotan dentist near one of Zimbabwe’s national parks. France is the first EU state to implement such a ban. In March, Australia also banned their import.

Between 2010 and the 2013, the last year for which data is available, more than 100 such lion trophies were imported to France.

Lionaid, a UK-based charity that is calling for the UK to follow suit with a ban on lion trophy imports, said it was “overjoyed” by the move.

A spokeswoman said: “Within the EU, France was a major importer of such trophies and we expect that wild lions will now find themselves safer without the presence of French trophy hunters.

“We trust that France’s decision will create a domino effect within the EU and that we will soon hear about other member states joining together to say no [to trophies].”

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Marineland Orca Dies Four Months After Mother, Following Life Of Captivity

A young orca who spent his whole life in captivity has died, just four months after the death of his mother at the same marine park.

19-year-old Valentine, riddled with health problems, passed away after extreme weather hit southern France, leaving the tourist attraction submerged in contaminated water.

His death has sparked backlash from animal rights groups, who fear the conditions will also kill the four remaining orcas.

Sam Lipman, chair of Dolphinaria-Free Europe, said: "We are incredibly concerned for the four remaining orcas at Marineland Antibes, now more than ever. Over a week has gone by and the orcas are still languishing in dirty tank water.

"The facility still hasn't released any information about how it is planning to resolve this horrific situation, which has caused the deaths of many animals that it is responsible for."

Footage from earlier this month shows the mud-riddled exhibits that the animals are being kept in:

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France to return 150 endangered tortoises to Madagascar

Marseille (AFP) - Some 150 endangered baby tortoises will return to Madagascar eight months after they were found wrapped in sticky tape and hidden in a crate at a Paris airport, the centre that cared for them said Tuesday.

"After several months of intensive care, the team is overjoyed to repatriate these protected animals to Madagascar," said a statement from Tortoise Village in France's southeastern Var region.

The centre took in the tortoises after they were found in the secret compartment of a crate transporting sea cucumbers through Charles de Gaulle airport in December.

The species -- known as "radiated tortoises" -- are found only in Madagascar and prized by collectors for the unique pattern on their shell case.

They can live up to 100 years, but are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which estimates they could be extinct within 50 years as a result of habitat loss and the international wildlife trade.

Around 20 of the baby reptiles died during the trip to France due to the "particularly unsuitable conditions of transport," customs officials said at the time, adding that they were destined for Laos.

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Pitcher plant in France eats bee-killing Asian hornets

10 August 2015 

Bee-killing Asian hornets spreading across Europe now face a natural enemy that lures them to destruction - a carnivorous North American plant, French experts say.

The head of a botanical garden in Nantes, western France, says the pitcher plant Sarracenia devours Asian hornets - but not European hornets. Nor does it eat bees or wasps.

Romaric Perrocheau recently found a Sarracenia stem full of dead hornets.

Asian hornets are a menace to beehives.

Mr Perrocheau, quoted by AFP news agency, said Sarracenia had "invented a very selective trap" for the aggressive Asian hornets.

The hornets are apparently attracted by Sarracenia's nectar and pheromones on the plant's tubular leaves. Once the hornet crawls inside the rim at the top it easily slips and plunges into the pitcher, to be digested by the plant's juices.

The trap appears to be a European adaptation, as Asian hornets do not exist in Sarracenia's native Massachusetts, in the eastern US. The plant can be grown easily in Europe and is not considered a threat to native flora.

Mr Perrocheau and an entomologist aim to study the contents of 200 pitchers, hoping to identify the chemical secret of their attraction for Asian hornets.

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France makes biggest ivory bust in a decade

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Kevin Heath

French customs have announced they have seized 12 elephant tusks at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris making it the biggest single seizure in a decade. The tusks had been cut down to 37 individual pieces and hidden under aluminium plates in cases to try an avoid detection.

The ivory was on route to Vietnam and the original flight of the plane was from the DR Congo.

“This is a sadly typical case,” said airport customs official Sebastien Tiran. “There’s one thing that never goes out of fashion and that’s ivory,”

The total weight of the ivory was 136 kilos and makes it the largest single seizure since December 2006 when 600 kilos of ivory were intercepted.

Source

France increases its wolf cull after disputed attack on 16-year-old boy

JOHN LICHFIELD

Monday 08 June 2015

The lightning reconquest of France by the grey wolf (Canis lupus) in the past 20 years has provoked an endless war of words between farmers and environmental movements. Now, France is to boost its official cull of wolves after a surge in sheep deaths and an alleged – though disputed – attack on a 16-year-old boy.

One senior pro-wolf campaigner suggested that the surrounding of a farmers’ son in the French Alps last Saturday by a pack of wolves was a “hoax” carried out by anti-wolf militants.

Whatever the truth, the government is expected to announce this week that it will increase the cull of wolves in France in the next 12 months by 50 per cent – from 24 animals to 36. The agriculture and environment ministers are also expected to relax the rules which govern when farmers can shoot wolves. Environmental campaigners said such a decision would be “grotesque”. They claimed that the attack by a “wolf pack”, had been staged with dogs (without the boy’s knowledge) to bring renewed pressure on the government.

The alleged attack occurred in the village of Seyne-les-Alpes, 70 miles north of Nice, close to the scene of the Germanwings air disaster. Romain Ferrand, a farmer’s son, said that he was surrounded by a pack of nine wolves and four wolf cubs late at night when he went to check on his family’s cows. “The wolves arrived at an incredible speed,” he said. “At first I thought they were after the calves. Then I realised I was the prey.” Romain said he fired a shotgun into the air and the wolves fled.

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France announces suspension of all raw ivory exports and no importation of elephants

A year after the destruction of three tonnes of seized ivory stockpiled by French authorities the French government has announced the suspension of all raw ivory exports.

In a letter directed to the Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, Ségolène Royal, 37 NGOs asked the French government to take immediate action to ban all trade and export of raw ivory and parts of unworked ivory in France. The UK already has such a ban in place.

In addition, Mrs Royal confirmed that France would not be receiving any elephants from Zimbabwe, as Zimbabwean authorities had previously suggested.

Celine Sissler-Bienvenu, Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) France and Francophone Africa, says: “We praise the decision undertaken by Mrs Royal.

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Rare baby tortoises (Radiated tortoises) held at French airport - via Herp Digest

 December30, 2014, SkyNews.Com.Au

French customs officials say they have found 170 critically endangered baby tortoises wrapped in sticky tape and hidden in the secret compartment of a crate transiting Paris' main Charles de Gaulle airport.

The species - known as 'radiated tortoises' - are found only in Madagascar and prized by collectors for the unique pattern on their shell case.

Customs officials said the tortoises were destined for Laos.

Fifteen of the baby reptiles have died since their discovery in the crate carrying sea cucumbers on December 14 due to the 'particularly unsuitable conditions of transport,' customs officials said.

The survivors have been taken to Tortoise Village in France's southeastern Var region.

'We put them in a warm place and cleaned them with disinfectant,' said the centre's director Bernard Devaux.

'They didn't have enough water but they should be rehydrated slowly to avoid a new shock.'

He described the baby tortoises as 'magnificent but very fragile, each one has a different shell pattern'.

Weighing only 20g and measuring up to four centimetres the tortoises are too small to face a second international flight and will likely spend a few years in France before being returned to Madagascar.

The tortoises can live up to 100 years.

'They are considered the most beautiful tortoises on the planet. You see them sold for $US10,000 ($A10,820) in New York or Tokyo,' said Devaux.

'They represent too much money. They are beautiful so they are hunted. Maybe it would be better if they were ugly.'

The tortoises are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

France's wild boar hunting condemned as a 'bloody spectacle from another age'

By Rory Mullholland, Paris

11:26PM GMT 17 Nov 2014

Animal rights activists are up in arms about a form of "hunting" that is becoming increasingly popular in France that involves releasing a wild boar into an enclosure and setting Argentinian hunting dogs loose to chase and kill it.

Fans of the practice are believed to be coming to France from abroad to partake in the events that pit the powerful Dogo Argentino, a mastiff which was used to hunt pumas in Argentina, against boars that stand little or no chance of surviving.

Aspas animal rights group says it does not have figures to show how widespread such events are, but believes they take place regularly and are growing in popularity.

It said there were three recent combats in the Var department in Provence alone and condemns the practice as a “bloody spectacle from another age”.

The legality of these events is a grey area in France.

Hunting with dogs is banned across much of Europe, including in Britain, but in France it is still a popular pastime, as is bullfighting in the southern regions, and it faces little opposition from politicians or animal rights groups.

The hunts usually involve chasing deer or boar over open countryside or though forests, with the prey having some chance of escaping alive.

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'Paris tiger': Big cat loose near French capital - report

13th November 2014 

Police, fire officials and a specially-trained hunting dog are searching for a big cat - believed to be a tiger - seen in a town outside Paris.

A woman alerted officials after spotting the animal in a supermarket car park in Montevrain, east of the French capital.

Officers armed with tranquiliser guns have been combing countryside outside the town, helped by a helicopter.

Residents of Montevrain and two other towns have been told to stay indoors.

As darkness fell, the Montevrain council said on its Facebook page that the search had been called off for the night but local schools would be secured by 08:00 on Friday.

During the day, children were kept in schools and collected by their parents by car.

It was unclear where the animal came from, though there is a big cat park near Montevrain.

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