wolf attacks
Francophone townspeople on the Alps to protect the herds
The Organization for the Protection of Alpine Pastures (OPAL) provides volunteer rangers to German-speaking breeders to prevent wolf attacks. Helpful to some. stupid to others.
published
The overseers keep an eye on the flocks by pitching their tent in the midst of the sheep.
opal
May marks the beginning of mountain pasture climbing. Therefore, breeders are actively preparing for it. To deal with large predators such as the wolf, enclosures are set up to protect the flocks at night. The French-speaking NGO Opal – the organization for the protection of mountain pastures – can help breeders carry out nighttime monitoring, also in German-speaking Switzerland, reports the “SonntagsZeitung”. Founded by Val de Bagnes biologist Jérémie Moulin (see box), this organization trains “urban idealists to watch the flocks against wolves in the Alps in summer.” This year, for the first time, they will go for the first time to help herd sheep in the alpine pastures outside Saareen.
protective presence
To protect the flocks, Opal volunteers pitch a large tent in the middle of the herd’s night enclosure. They cook and sleep there, thus protecting the animals from the wolf by their mere presence. “We stayed three weeks in some mountain pastures, three months in others, depending on the situation,” says Jeremy Mullin. “So far, there have been no accidents. The risk of a wolf attacking a man is almost non-existent.”
First decisive experience in Haute-Valais
Breeder Flavio Oggier, from Baltschieder (VS), used a free Oppal show last summer in Zwischbergental, a wild side valley in the southern Valais, where more than 500 black-nosed sheep spend the summer. A coyote has already been detected there. The experience was decisive and will be repeated this year. Even if some shepherds are skeptical about the volunteers who “have somewhat green tendencies and would even like to see a wolf. They give us extra security at night and their work makes a valuable contribution to the safety of the sheep,” Flavio Ogier believes. I find that those who are with the wolf contribute also.
“Foolishness” by Valais against the Wolf
Other Valais pastoralists remain skeptical about the usefulness of opals in monitoring their flocks. Sheep breeder Georg Schneidrig, President of the Lebensraum Wallis Ohne Grossraubtiere Association (Editor’s note: Valais is a living space free from large predators) describes working with city volunteers as “crap”. For him, the presence of large predators required more financial support to maintain the Alpine economy and regulate the wolves. The rapid spread of predators in Switzerland will also increase the risk of attack on humans, especially given the proximity of wolves to villages and towns: “The romantic idea that many city-dwellers have of predators like bears and the wolf is naive.”
Jeremy Moulins, a biologist from Val-de-Pains, had the idea to create Opal in 2020, “to contribute concretely to improving the situation of breeders in the mountain pastures”. In the first year, the organization managed to recruit 200 members. This summer, 450 volunteers have already applied. Opal is still looking for volunteers to train as shepherds in an intensive one-day course in June.
The goal: to provide them with the tools “necessary to protect the flocks from the wolf by their mere presence,” the “SonntagsZeitung” reports. They learn how to properly erect fences, manage flocks of sheep and fight back as soon as a wolf approaches. Volunteers will only have to pay for transportation and personal equipment to spend a couple of nights under a large tent near the flocks, thus helping the farmers to protect them.
(sheep)
