French Official Fined $12,000 In Wolf Tail Gift Case - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th March, 2021) Jean-Marie Bernard, the chairman of the southeastern French Hautes-Alpes department, has been sentenced to a fine of 10,000 Euros (nearly $12,000) for an attempt to give a wolf tail to a regional prefect as a gift, media reported on Friday.

According to the France Bleu news outlet, the controversy occurred over a year ago, when Bernard offered a wolf tail as a gift to former regional prefect Cecile Bigot-Dekeyzer on the occasion of her departure. While the official described the gift as a political act in defense of sheep and sheep breeders, associations supporting wolves as protected species brought a civil action against Bernard.

Following a trial last month, a court charged the official with the possession and transfer of the wolf tail and sentenced him to a fine of 10,000 euros, half of which is suspended, and obliged him to pay an additional 1,100 euros to the complainant associations.

In the meantime, wolves are classified as "strictly protected wild species" in France since the early 1990s within the EU's Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats treaty.