Would people in the countryside, farming or not, be disturbed if they heard that it was now Government policy to allow the re-introduction of the wolf into Ireland? Or the bear, for that matter. After all, if man hunted some species to death, or nearly so, and they managed to make a comeback without help from anyone, should not mankind in these more environmentally-minded days, and in days of comparative plenty, in Western nations anyway, such as France, take this in its stride and even take pride in the resurgence? The wolves in France, at last count this summer amounting to 20 animals, have naturally been killing sheep on a scale that brings the farmer good compensation money, but does not make him feel any more at ease. Many farmers, it is said, last summer brought their flocks down from the high mountains because the traditional transhumance, or booleying as we called it here, left the sheep too open to attack.
Naturalists point out that no French citizen brought the wolves from Italy, the source of the invasion. They came, it appears, via the nature park of Mercantour in the French Alps, but are moving westwards. The head of an organisation called France-Nature-Environment pointed out in a newspaper interview that the sheep farmers put up every year with the destruction of "tens of thousands of sheep mauled by wild dogs without making great drama out of it. A few hundred more deaths attributed to wolves didn't seem to him to justify the strong reaction. Sheep farmers are subsidised by more than 50 per cent, he claims, and do they not see the return of an animal so steeped in mystery as amounting to something special from the cultural and ecological viewpoint?
Suppose these animals breed and proliferate? Well, if they became too numerous, there would admittedly be a case for culling, as has been done under ministerial order with the cormorant, a great source of trouble to fish farmers in particular. But, said the pro-wolf spokesman, to tolerate a score of wolves in the Alps is to show that our society is evolving; that man is less "sectarian" and no longer wants to destroy systematically everything that could disturb or upset him. France, as we well know, is a big country with many wild, open, high places. Where would wolves (and we) be safe in this little island? On another day we will look at the present state of bears in the Pyrenees.