A young hunter filmed what he believes to be a wolf during a hunting trip in Brittany this weekend.
The sighting occurred in the town of Grâces in the Côtes d'Armor on Saturday (November 18). A group of hunters claim to have “seen the animal pass a hundred metres from them.”
The son of one of the hunters had the reflex to take out his phone and film, with the video later shared on social media.
The sighting is to be confirmed
Footprints were taken and photographed by other hunters who were in the vicinity.
As with other cases of this type, these traces will be sent to the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) to be authenticated.
The OFB also made the trip on Sunday morning to take its own samples, adding that the presence of a wolf has been confirmed in different areas of the region previously.
To confirm if it is the same individual wolf travelling around in Brittany, a genetic identification would need to be made.
Wolf numbers increase in France
The wolf population has grown radically in the past five years in France, both in number and in the territory that they cover.
Today, most French wolves are found in the southern Alps, but also in the Prealps, the backcountry of Provence, the Massif Central, the Pyrenees and the Vosges.
As a result in September the government changed their categorisation from a ‘strictly protected’ to a ‘protected’ species, causing alarm among conservation groups.
This allows for more wolves to be killed each year and gives more resources to farmers affected by their presence.
Read more: Wolf numbers increase in France, rules on hunting them to be relaxed
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