In Mons, in the Hauts-cantons, the animal which decimated Yannick Poras’ herd still not identified

Yannick Porras dans la parcelle où une partie de son troupeau a été dévorée. – F.Faux

Pour l’administration, ce n’est pas le loup, et pour l’éleveur ça ne peut pas être un chien… Le mystère demeure.

The verdict came at the beginning of May, more than a month and a half after the attack on Yannick Poras' herd, in the form of a registered letter sent by the prefecture: < em> "We observed perforations with hematomas on at least 3 lambs. However, their diameter is less than 3 mm and the tracheas are not crushed or perforated". Conclusion: "The wolf's responsibility is dismissed", and the breeder will not be compensated.

For Yannick Poras, it’s a disappointment, but also a mystery. On March 11, in a fenced vineyard, less than a kilometer from the first houses of Mons-la-Trivalle, he discovered 7 devoured lambs, plus a missing ewe. rsquo;call. The fangs are too small to be those of a wolf ? “In this case how could small animals have caused such carnage, he asks. More than 50kg of meat was consumed, which is too much for scavengers or crows.< /p>

So a dog attack ? They are also very common. In February, September lambs were killed by a dog in Lansargues. In July 2023, two Malinois injured around fifty sheep in Clapiers, north of Montpellier. And these are not necessarily stray or abandoned dogs. "Here there are a lot of hiking trails, people don't take precautions and let their animals wander ", notes Yannick Poras

"The herd has been surrounded"

But back at the scene of the crime, in his vineyard in Mons, he points out various clues which also rule out this hypothesis: "This is not a place where the ;rsquo;we arrive by following the paths, he begins. We are in a loop of the Jaur, delimited by a cliff, surrounded by a sheep fence which is one meter and fifty high." He continues by stopping in the middle of his plot, at the place where he found three remains, side by side ,  : "The herd was surrounded, everything was eaten, even the bones and entrails. When it is dogs, the victims are found the along the fences. They hit the herd at random, there are a lot of injured animals."

So who is the culprit? The motion detector camera placed on the site did not work that day but in three years it has only surprised &quot ;badger, fox, genets, never dogs. Another suspect from the East is also sometimes pointed out by breeders, the golden jackal.  "I found excrement with seeds in it, mark of an omnivorous animal, indicates Yannick Poras, but I don't have any other evidence. Only certainty: "As wolf attacks are the only ones giving right to compensation, I will lose more than 1 000 euros in this matter  ;quot;.

Breeding is not the main activity of this winegrower, but a passion that he wants to continue to cultivate. For more than 10 years, he has met Lacaune and Ouessant to obtain small, stocky sheep, suitable for eco-grazing in the vineyards. "They pass under the trellises but cannot reach the first branches of the fruit trees, he explains. I sell them to orchard operators, to winegrowers keen to limit the use of herbicides. It also needs animals to enchant his daily life: "Pruning the vines with the sheep around, that's something…"

Today, he still has a ram, a grazer, 9 ewes and 7 lambs, which are now on another plot, on the edge of the Jaur. In this place, there is no longer a sheep fence, but a simple electric fence: "If a predator wants to attack, we won't be able to do anything."

Wolf attacks in Hérault

In 2023, the French Biodiversity Office established 27 reports of herd attacks. For 15 of them, the wolf is not ruled out; for the twelve others, it would be another predator. 4 wolves have been identified in the Hérault region. If we except the lone wolf seen at La Grande Motte, signs of presence have been noted on the Larzac, in the Somail forest and especially in the Caroux massif, around of Rose. In France, the presence of the wolf is today recorded in 53 departments, or 25 more than in 2022, for a lupine population estimated at just under 1,000 individuals.

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