Protecting vulnerable species may be important, but protecting Alpine cheeses is more so, farmers told a court yesterday as they defended plans to kill mountain goats.
The cull in the Bargy mountain range has been ordered by the French government to stop Alpine ibex goats passing brucellosis to cattle whose milk makes some of the country’s finest cheeses. The authorities say that production of reblochon, which is melted over potatoes and lardons to make tartiflette, and comté and beaufort, which are used in Savoyard fondue, could be halted if herds are contaminated by the disease.
Environmentalists are seeking a court ruling to end the cull, which they say could endanger the goat species.
Officials said that they would spare only 75 healthy ibex out of an estimated 325 in the region, to avoid a repeat of a fiasco in 2012, when a herd of cows was slaughtered after contracting the disease. Whole batches of reblochon were destroyed after two children also caught the condition, which produces flu-like symptoms in humans.
In this year’s cull, marksmen from the National Office for Hunting and Wildlife were winched down from helicopters 11 days ago on to the Bargy mountains as 200 gendarmes blocked the roads.
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A total of 70 ibex were killed but environmental associations won an injunction suspending the shooting until a court could hear their arguments. The hearing was held before the administrative court in Grenoble, southeast France, yesterday, when Bernard Mogenet, the chairman of the Savoie branch of the farmers’ union, said brucellosis was “a threat to all mountain agriculture”, notably to reblochon and other raw milk cheeses.
Eric Feraille, the chairman of Rhône-Alpes Nature Protection Federation, said the cull “was exactly the wrong thing to do”.
“It’s idiotic, and the risk is that it will drive the Alpine ibex on to other mountain ranges with the result that the disease will get out of control,” he said.
He said the French agency for food safety had estimated the risk of a brucellosis outbreak amongst cattle or humans as “almost zero”.
“They should test the goats, and put down those which test positive and vaccinate the others,” he said.
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Mr Feraille said that the Alpine ibex had been hunted to near extinction in France before it was given protected status in 1981. “There are about 3,000 animals in France today and the species is still vulnerable,” he said.
Grenoble administrative court will give judgment later this week.