A ribbon of blood leads through the flattened grass, before pooling below the corpse. The victim’s throat is missing, and savage scars stream up her flank. Monsieur Eric Anould regards the body with a mixture of distain and anger, before heaving a sigh, locking the gate and descending back to his farm in the village of Ventron. The April sun rises on the opposite side of the valley, evaporating the morning dew so that the characteristic ‘blue line’ of the forested Vosges Mountains appears. The following week, a further 5 victims are discovered nearby at Cornimont , displaying the same gruesome wounds, which lead the authorities to draw up a list of suspects. Since the attacks take place at night, that the killer targets the neck, and that the victims are partially eaten, it is concluded that the murders are the work of a large carnivoire; a rabid dog, an enraged hunting dog, a wild lynx or a wolf.
This is not the first time that a string of mysterious killings of sheep have occurred in the area; in the 70s “La bête des Vosges” is said to have stalked the forests. Whilst the real perpetrator was never discovered, murmurs in the local brasseries hinted at the return of the wolf. At the time, this conclusion seemed unlikely. Following a period of state encouraged persecution (100 Francs per pelt brought in), the wolf was tracked, trapped, poisoned and hunted to extinction by the early 1900s. Return to 2011, where the local press, encouraged like sharks by the splashes of blood describe the killer as “ferocious and determined”, and media frenzy occurs when the latest victim is revealed. Jean-Yves Poirot demands that action must be taken after his two month old foal is found dead at his ranch outside La Bresse. His father, who lost 21 sheep to “La bête” in 77 argues that today the perpetrator will be caught, with modern methods of surveillance and analysis. But so far, the killer has remained elusive, leaving no prints and the few hairs found at the scene of the crime are too damaged for DNA analysis.
A representative of the l’Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage (the national bureau of hunting and fauna), referred to as the expert in tracking wolves and lynx is brought in, and in the month of July, the first picture taken from a remote sensing camera reveals what is almost certainly a wolf. A month later a second picture is taken in the forests above Gerardmer, this time from profile revealing the characteristic white face mask, confirming that Canis lupus has returned to the Vosges. But unlike an Agatha Christie murder mystery, the unmasking of the killer does not settle the matter. If anything the plot thickens.
A week later a further 11 sheep are found dead on the Chaume de Sérichamps, the majority of whom were pregnant. Now that the perpetrator is known to be a wolf, the farmers are eligible to a subsidy from the state to roughly 250 € per sheep. But none is paid out for the unborn lambs, or to those mothers who will abort their young from fear. Furthermore, due to the protected status of the Wolf in France, there is nothing to stop further attacks. The shepherd of the latest attack responded: “We are ready to accept the many facets of nature, but we should have the right to defend ourselves against dangerous animals!” M. Poirot takes a different stance: “Everytime that a wolf arrives in our department, we must eliminate it so that it does not proliferate”. But others argue that: “this would be pointless, even if we killed the wolf, more would arrive in autumn or the following year, it is just a question of time. We thus must equip farmers with ways to coexhist with these predators”.
A further kick in the teeth came for M. Poirot when 4 of his sheep were killed. The farmer told the press that “If a wolf loving green wants to buy my farm, I welcome his offer. He can deal with the beast. The financial aspect is really not the issue. Just imagine the stress I am under with these repeated attacks”. The stress began to show when he took matters into his own hands, returning the subsidy cheques sent to him by the council, and dumping the corpses of 3 of the sheep in a tourist car park to await collection by the incinerators: “I want people to really see what this wolf has done to my animals”.
The wolf attacks in the Vosges have opened a barely healed wound, and emotions continue to run high. It is hard to see how such a conflict can be resolved, given that money according to M. Poirot is not the issue. All the information above was taken from reports by the L'Est Républicain newspaper
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