A wolf was seen on Friday evening near downtown Toulon. News that confirms a trend: the increase in the population of this large predator in France and in the region.
The information was revealed by Was-MatinSATURDAY. A wolf was seen in the Saint-Jean-du-Var district of Toulonby a man who was returning from the La Garde cinema by car on Friday evening. “I saw like a gray and white animal which was not at all frightened by our car which was advancing towards it. I believed in a dog but no: it was indeed a wolf!”, did he testify to Was-Matin.
The information did not surprise Hervé Boyac, representative in the Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône and Var de Wild, an association specializing in the protection, conservation and communication around large predators (wolves, lynx, bears). “It’s not the first time this has happened. This was the case recently in Marseille, in La Penne-sur-Huveaune (Bouches-du-Rhone). It’s not something extraordinary.”
As the wolf population in France increases again – there are some 1000 according to him -, it is logical, for Hervé Boyac, that the presence of wolves, in search of food, on the outskirts of cities is intensifying. “Mathematically, we will have more possibilities of meetings. It has already happened, it will happen again.”
According to him, there is around forty packs of wolves in the Alpes-Maritimes, around thirty in the Var and around ten in the Bouches-du-RhôneOr “the colonization is much more recent. If they are left with relative peace, they will take back the territory they previously had”.
Hervé Boyac would like to remind wolves are harmlesson the condition of not transmitting to them a potential fear. “Until proven otherwise, for a long time there have been no wolf attacks on humans anywhere in the world, although it may have happened in the past. But man is not one of the prey of the wolf because of its standing position. And since wolves no longer have rabies, which could make them aggressive…”
