Foal attacked in Bertogne: DNA analyzes are in!

This is an unusual discovery which was noted last October near Mande-Saint-Etienne (Bertogne). A few meters from the national 4, the breeder Joël Grandjean discovered one of his foals disembowelled. Bouli was a draft horse barely four months old but already weighing more than 200 kg. In good health, the animal had been attacked in the neck before its predator attacked its other organs. A month after this tragedy, the DNA analyzes taken spoke. “The foal was attacked by a wolf of German-Polish lineageexplains Alain Licoppe, the coordinator of the Réseau Loup. An attack of this type, on an animal as imposing as a foal, is a first in Wallonia. Previously, the rare attacks on a horse had been perpetrated by dogs.. If this type of attack on an equine is a first in Wallonia, our German neighbors have been confronted with it numerous times for several years. A study shows that in certain regions of Germany, equines can represent up to 93% of wolves’ diet. This same study also shows that wolves avoid gatherings of horses as well as areas where the passage of wild animals is frequent. With the increasingly obvious presence of wolves in our regions, this type of attack is unfortunately likely to increase in number in the years to come.