Wolves and livestock in France: situation after 25 years and possible solutions.

International audienceScientists of the COADAPHT inter-agency network, founded in 2016 by INRA-SAD, have reviewed 25 years of wolves' presence in France and their impact on livestock farming. Wolves are present in a third of France, with 75 packs to date, and all of them in the Alps. The annual number of predated domestic animals has increased linearly over the past 11 years and is apparently a record in Europe despite the elaborate means of protection (livestock guarding dogs, shepherd's assistants, compulsory night pens). The failure of protection means is obvious as public and private costs are exploding. It seems that wolves in France, as a strictly protected species in a territory occupied by numerous humans, no longer associate livestock with humans, and humans with danger. Experience elsewhere in the world has shown that there is an urgent need to restore a more systematic reciprocal relation, including through targeted lethal regulation, in order to restore a more acceptable relation