First wolf spotted in Normandy for a CENTURY during coronavirus lockdown after once being hunted to extinction

A WOLF is thought to have been spotted in Normandy, northern France, for the first time in a century.

What is believed to be a grey wolf was photographed at night near France’s Channel coast.

European grey wolves re-entered France from Italy in the 1990s after being hunted to extinction in the 1930s.

While they have since spread across France it is the first time the animal has been spotted so far north.

The wolf was captured on film by an automatic surveillance camera near the village of Londinières, in the Seine-Maritime department, reports .

In a statement the Prefecture said that experts at the French Biodiversity Office, a state-run organisation that monitors the country’s population of wolves, “have authenticated this observation as very probably being a grey wolf”.

The Prefecture said that spotting a lone wolf was not that surprising as young wolves often roam alone in springtime, when they leave the packs they were raised in and go in search of a mate.

The Prefecture added: “They can cover distances of several hundred kilometres in a few months before settling. The maximum distance from the place of birth can exceed 1,500 kilometres (1,350 miles).”

France is thought to be home to around 530 wolves, who mainly live in the Alps, the south-east and east of the country.

The grey wolf is protected as an endangered species under EU law with the animal now spread across every country in continental Europe.

LOOKING FOR A MATE

France, Italy, Denmark, Latvia and Estonia are lobbying Brussels to allow farmers to shoot more of the animals, arguing that they threaten farming communities and livelihoods.

Farmers are demanding the right to cull more of them to reduce attacks on livestock.

Wolves kill thousands of sheep each year but conservationists have opposed the move.

The agriculture ministry, which is in charge of regulating the wolf population, set the quota allowed to be killed at 17 per cent in January.

In January 2017 The Sun reported wolves had started making their home in areas surrounding Paris.

Alliance avec les loups and Observatoire du loup collected evidence which included reports of characteristic wolf howling, sightings of paw prints and the discovery of wolf droppings in Yvelines, Essonne and Seine-et-Marne.

A 16-year-old boy told in 2015 how he came face-to-face with pack of nine wolves in France.
Farmer’s son Romain Ferrand said the snarling beasts surrounded him at his family’s cattle farm.

The lad, who walks with a crutch, said: “The wolves arrived at a very fast gait. At first I thought they were attacking the calves. Then I understood that I was their prey.”

The youngster fired his rifle into the air and the wolves fled.

Separately, South Australia Police captured the moment a kangaroo hopped through the heart of downtown Adelaide during the coronavirus lockdown in the country.

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