One of the wolves
Driving south from Clermont-Ferrand, as you leave the Auvergne and enter Lozère in northern Languedoc, take exit 37 and continue south along the old N9. On your left you may glimpse the rocky walls of the Vallée d’Enfer.
You will also see signs to ‘Les Loups’. A few kilometres down the road, you will see the entrance to the Parc à Loups du Gévaudan. This is the public face of a wolf sanctuary whose sponsors include the Brigitte Bardot Foundation. There is also an 85-hectare fenced wilderness where wolves live in a more or less natural state, visited only by park staff.
Walkway above the wolves
The park includes a museum with illustrations and tales of the fear in which these animals were held by most people in days gone by. The museum takes great pains to debunk these ideas, giving us the benefit of modern understanding of how these handsome creatures live and behave. In particular, it points out that in countries like Italy and Spain wild wolves flourish in sheep-farming country without being persecuted by shepherds. They solve the problem by using rather large dogs, whose presence discourages wolves from seeing the flocks as a primary food supply.
Poke your finger in, and the wolf will eat it
The museum points to the experience of these shepherds:
“A wolf only kills to eat. A pack may occasionally kill one lamb, but if there is sudden mass destruction of our flocks, the culprits are always domestic dogs.”
The white dog, Buffy, is a cross Pyrennean mastiff – a hunting dog rather than a sheepdog, but the same size.
