Crying Wolf

Bearing anti-wolf signs and crying “wolf,” dozens of shepherds led 2,000 sheep through this town in the south of France to protest the resurgence of the sheep’s predator and to demand authorities remove it from their Alpine pastures. Ancestors “had to burn entire forests” to get rid of the wolves, said Louis Escoffier of the Sheep Federation. Following a 50-year campaign to eradicate the wolves, they were removed from the region by 1924. Some 5,000 sheep have been killed by wolves since they were reintroduced to the Alps in 1992, according to sheep farmers. The French government said there are about 30 wolves loose in the Alps. They have tried to reconcile its wish to regenerate the wolf population with the shepherds’ fears for their flocks.