A gray wolf was "most probably" photographed in Seine-Maritime on the night of April 7 to 8, "a first for more than a century," the prefecture announced in a press release on Friday. This large canine was photographed by an automatic camera in the town of Londinières, about thirty kilometers south-east of Dieppe.
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The photos were sent on April 12 to experts from the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) who " were able to authenticate this observation as being very probably that of a gray wolf", according to the same source, which nevertheless underlines that "This expertise should be considered with some reservations".
“The hopping colonization system is characteristic of the wolf. The new installation territory can be separated from the original pack by several tens or even hundreds of kilometers, leaving empty spaces which can later be colonized. This explains in particular certain isolated observations, far from known permanent presence zones, such as in Seine-Maritime, ” explains the prefecture. " These dispersed individuals may stay in an area for several months before leaving it."
"At this stage, this observation in Seine-Maritime does not allow to affirm that the wolf settles in the department", she specifies. The OFB has identified 97 areas of permanent presence of wolves on French territory, mainly in the Alps, the Southeast and the East. At the end of winter 2018/2019, the wolf population in France was estimated at around 530 individuals.
