Meanwhile, other prevention and defense measures are already being deployed against wolves in the field.
GPS-Wolves: What Annie Genevard Proposes
The proposal surfaced on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, in the National Assembly. Testifying before the Economic Affairs Committee, Annie Genevard answered Rhône deputy Jean-Luc Fugit, who questioned the difficulties faced by breeders in the Pilat Massif as a wolf pack establishes itself. The French Minister of Agriculture then advanced the idea of equipping certain wolves with a GPS system in areas heavily affected by predation and on the fronts of colonization.
The objective is simple in principle: better knowing the position of predators in order to warn the impacted operators when an equipped animal approaches their herds. “We have the technical capacity to equip wolves,” asserted Annie Genevard before the Economic Affairs Committee. The technology does exist indeed. What remains are a series of questions far more complex: which animals to capture, how to equip them, how frequently to obtain their position, and how much value to assign to an absence of alert?
The minister does not present, at this stage, a finalized system. No number of wolves to equip, no financial envelope, and no deployment timetable have been announced. Genevard mentions a lead she says she has submitted to her colleague responsible for the Ecological Transition. The fronts of colonization are particularly targeted: these are precisely the territories where the predator settles in areas where farms sometimes have less experience and less equipment suited to its presence.
This concern reflects a real development. According to the early estimates released by the Ministry of Agriculture on February 24, 2026, 4,441 attacks attributed to wolves were recorded in France in 2025, a rise of about 10% from the previous year. They would have caused 12,927 animal victims, primarily sheep, a figure up 15.1%. In the expansion territories, the agency notes a 38.4% increase in attacks and a 27.3% rise in the number of victims in 2025. These data partly explain the particular attention given to the new zones where wolves are present.
Pilat illustrates this territorial progression. In early September 2026, the Loire prefecture indicated that intensified monitoring had confirmed the wolf’s reproduction and the formation of a first pack in the massif. Camera traps had been deployed near predation sites. It is therefore in a sector where the predator’s presence becomes durable that the question of faster informing farmers arises.
Nevertheless, the GPS would be only one additional component of a management framework that is already heavily reinforced. Since February 2026, the ceiling announced for wolves that can be destroyed has risen from 19% to 21% of the reference population, i.e., 227 animals, with the possibility, under certain conditions, of rising to 23%, i.e., 248 wolves. Then the emergency law for the protection and agricultural sovereignty, enacted on August 18, 2026, amended the legal framework applicable to livestock defense, removals, and deterrence.
Annie Genevard Faces the Technical Feasibility Challenge
On the technological front alone, the proposal does not start from zero. The OFB has just demonstrated its viability in a real-world trial. A female wolf captured accidentally in Seine-Maritime on May 10, 2026 was released four days later in Drôme with a GPS collar. The animal was subsequently tracked for nearly two months before being shot in the night of July 16–17 in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence during a legal defense shot.
The equipment calculated its position with a precision generally ranging from 8 to 15 meters, the OFB notes in its report published on August 13, 2026. In 65 days, the collar logged about 634 kilometers of movements, from elevations around 2,400 meters to the outskirts of the Durance, near about 600 meters. These results show that it is possible to monitor a wild wolf’s movements very precisely over long distances.
However, one must be careful not to confuse geographic precision with immediacy. In the OFB’s experience, the collar’s receiver activated periodically according to a predetermined schedule. Positions were first stored on the device and then transmitted in batches via the Iridium satellite system. Terrain and forest cover could momentarily disrupt the transmission. Missing data were ultimately recovered from the device’s memory, which is very useful for reconstructing a posteriori a route, much less for warning a farmer at the exact moment a predator is approaching.
A second obstacle is even more evident: you must first capture the wolf. The case studied by the OFB was particular because the animal had been accidentally captured before being equipped. Switching to a targeted program would require locating and then deliberately capturing individuals, placing collars on them, ensuring technical follow-up, and renewing the operation as animals move into or out of a territory. The law will also need to be clarified. The decree of February 23, 2026 explicitly governs the capture of wolves for scientific research by the OFB, the National Museum of Natural History, INRAE, or CNRS. The scenario of an operational alert network for farms is not described in this provision.
Wolf: GPS Protection Has Its Limits
Even perfectly operational, a collar only provides information about the animal that wears it. This is a crucial limitation if the goal is to prevent an attack. The OFB’s recent experience is illuminating: when the tracked female was shot near a flock, she was accompanied by a second wolf. The geolocation of the first animal did not equate to a permanent census of all predators present in the area.
The same logic applies to a pack. Tagging a single individual can yield valuable information about territory use, movements, and certain habits. But a lack of alert from a system would not prove that no wolves are near a flock. An untagged animal can move independently. A dispersing juvenile can also cross into a new area. To become a true safety device, the tool would thus need to be presented to farmers as additional information rather than a guarantee of no risk.
The mobility recorded by the OFB also underscores the problem. 634 kilometers in 65 days demonstrate that an individual can cover a substantial area. The more frequent the positions, the more questions arise about the collar’s autonomy, data transmission, and the organization of the alert system.
That is precisely where Annie Genevard’s proposal still needs to be documented. “We must indeed find solutions,” the minister said. But to measure GPS’s real usefulness, one would need to know the number of animals targeted, the expected frequency of locations, the capture modalities, the test territories, the alert transmission delay, and what the farmer should do upon receiving it. Without these parameters, technological feasibility is established, not operational effectiveness.
Protection Against Wolves: Other Means Already Exist
GPS would come, if adopted, as part of a well-stocked toolbox. Public support for farm protection covers various additional costs related to enhanced guarding, protection dogs, electrified fences, as well as studies and technical assistance, explains the Ministry of Agriculture in its 2026 framework. In February 2026, the government indicated it would maintain about 40 million euros per year in public funding for these protection measures.
At this stage, Annie Genevard’s proposal is therefore a technical path to be explored alongside the protection, alert, and defense measures that already exist.
