Farmers dump sheep killed by wolves in front of Swiss government building

“These sheep were killed last night,” Keystone ATS quoted Eric Herb, a member of the Swiss Association for the Control of Large Predators, as saying.

“It’s time to really act.”

“We're fed up. We want the wolves killed,” agreed Patrick Pellelou, a farmer and butcher in the nearby town of Uhlen.

“Cohabitation is impossible. Our territory is too small,” he told Keystone-ATS.

Protesters told news agencies that wolves killed 17 sheep in the same area late last month, two earlier this week and 13 overnight through Saturday.

“The breeders have been good in the past, but this time they went too far,” Herb said.

He said the protesters planned to increase pressure on the Green Party's Vasilis Venizelos, the environment minister in the canton of Vaud.

Keystone-ATS reported that one of the demonstrators' banners read “Mr. Vasilis resigns.”

The breeders negotiated briefly with local police before being allowed to place the animal's carcass on a tarp in front of the chateau.

Participants in the protest, supported by a local branch of the far-right Swiss People's Party, Switzerland's largest political party, lamented that they were unable to sleep.

“We have to check on the animals every night,” one person reportedly said.

Wolves have begun to return to Switzerland and other European countries in recent decades after going extinct more than a century ago.

Since the first herd was discovered in the wealthy Alpine country in 2012, the number of herds has swelled to 32 in the last year, with a population of around 300 individuals.

Conservation groups have hailed the resurgence as a sign of a healthier and more diverse ecosystem.

But breeders and pastoralists, frustrated by attacks on their livestock, are increasingly demanding that more wolves be culled.

Swiss authorities decided last year to relax rules on hunting protected species and allow large-scale preventive culling in the most affected cantons, but swift legal action partially frozen the plan. It was done.

Debate about wolves entered the political agenda in several parts of Europe in September.

In an open letter to the European Commission, eight major conservation organizations said there are ways to make it easier for humans to coexist with large wild animals like wolves.

“Harm to livestock is often associated with a lack of proper supervision and physical protection,” they said. They pointed to strategies such as “training dogs to protect herds, educating herders, and tools and technological solutions to deter wolves.”

Norway/Gil