the essential
Is a wolf walking near Limoux? The solitary animal was filmed on Sunday at the city gates. “It could be a stray dog,” says the Aude prefecture.
This Sunday, January 19, it was 2 a.m. when a resident of Limoux posted a surprising video on Facebook. In the darkness, barely lit by the city's street lights, an animal appears, strongly resembling a wolf. The animal does not really seem frightened, despite the barking of the dogs that can be heard clearly in the background, and the proximity of the car. He looks around, sniffs the ground before heading back to a less lit place.
“Live just a stone’s throw from the house,” the user wrote in the caption. According to information collected by our colleague L'Indépendant, the animal was seen on Chemin de Carliqui, near homes. Some say they have seen a similar animal near the Digne d'Aval, on the other side of the valley, several kilometers away.
-On social networks, where the video has been shared a hundred times, as on the Place de la République in Limoux, the images provoke a lot of reaction. Some doubt. “I think he’s a little built for a wolf, I think he’s a wolf dog,” confides a retired breeder. “It’s a wolf, that’s for sure,” analyze some Internet users, who are then divided on the need to protect or, on the contrary, kill the animal.
The OFB analyzes the video
When contacted, the prefecture indicated that it had been alerted to the presence of this animal. “At this stage, caution remains in order. It may be a stray dog. The French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) is in charge of the file and is analyzing the video,” indicate the state services.
The prefecture specifies that “if it turned out that it was a wolf, the event would be considered as a one-off indication of presence, without impact on the protection zoning already classified as C3, which allows breeders to be eligible for financial aid to protect their herds.
Recalling that a wolf “can travel several dozen kilometers in 24 hours”, the prefecture suggests that the animal could have left the area. To date, no attacks on humans or other animals that could be attributed to a wolf have been observed in the Limoux sector in recent days.
