Wolves of Lozère

Interested in wolves?

Travel with me.

The Cévennes are a beautiful territory, with mountains, deep rocky valleys, causses, gorgeous villages and towns... very changing landscapes, just read Stevenson's memories from his travel with a donkey. They have quite an interesting history and corpus of legends and tales. The 13 inhabitants/km² (in the department of Lozère) have, with a foggy weather and a wide range of wide animal species, a few opportunities and excellent reasons to imagine and tell stories. The term "bête du Gévaudan" is well known... Between 1764 and 1767, a hundred persons where killed by what was said to be a mysterious beast. There were wolves, the shepherds didn't especially fear them, but the police hesitated: mass-murderer or huge animal?

Creating a wolves park in the Gévaudan was a way of repairing some moral grieves toward the extincted french wolves. I beg your pardon, they weren't extinct as they weren't a specie... and wild wolves reappeared from the end of the XXth C.

Gérard Ménatory, journalist for the daily newspaper Midi-Libre adopted 2 polish wolved in 1961 and settled them in his property close to Mende... He progressively gathered a hord, which he transfered in 1971 to the animal park created in 1962 in Sainte-Lucie. The park hosted several kinds of animals at the beginning, then only wolves from 1985. They were 26 in 1986, 86 in 1989, and the fondation of Brigitte Bardot brought tens more. They are quite loved and respected. The place is just great if you want to observe (but plan a stay a whole day!) naturally enough kept animals and to learn about them. There are 6 species, and babies.

Let's go...

From Montpellier, you can take the moutain small roads, if not car-sick, or the freeway. Advantage of the freeway: the Viaduc de Millau, the highest bridge of its kind in the world. But a freeway is like a train or a plane, it makes a trip virtual...

Free from the freeway...

The fog plays with the mountains and forests, hides and reveals red or beige cows and large houses of grey stones. It is green and flowered, guess why: it rains.

The restaurant of Sainte-Lucie welcomes you with a smell of alligot and 2 kittens, white and black. 

Panorama from the terrace:

As for the wolves, don't be impatient, listen, smell, look for bones, excrements, holes... Learn about their personnality and life from the guides... and visit the region if you don't spot them! Villages, markets, waterfalls and grottoes won't hide. If ever you need mates for a few days long trip with kids including some hiking with donkey and dromadary, a visit to the Vallon de Villaret, some degustations of cheese, honey, local cakes and else, let me know, I have a lot of ideas!