A century ago, the French government led the charge to kill off the species at the top of the Alpine food chain, long a bane to sheep farmers. The purge seemed to be successful until about 15 years ago, when a handful of wolves reappeared in their original habitat, most likely crossing over the border from Italy.
This time the government declared that they were a protected species, which is why sheep owners — whose flocks are the object of hundreds of attacks each year — are up in arms.
Lamb is a billion dollar-a-year industry in France and the owners say that either the wolves should be killed or their flocks protected.
Ecologists and many other citizens, however, herald the return of the historically maligned canines.
For the time being the government is straddling the fence, invoking the European Bern convention that protects the species but authorizing a carefully controlled and limited number of wolf killings each year. Sheep owners are compensated if they lose an animal to the wolves, but are not allowed to hunt them.
And then there's the man with the orange traffic cone.
A few weeks a year, Yannick Leonard, 50, an official at the national hunting and wildlife department, assembles a team of 10 to 20 people, splits them up and heads into the foothills of the Alps, flashlight in hand.
His mission: estimate the wolf population and where it is concentrated.
On this particular nocturnal outing near the Italian border in mid-September, the party numbers 11 people.
The group fans out and takes up pre-determined positions, and then Leonard lifts his traffic cone to his lips and howls.
