On the website of the Trois Vallées zoo (Tarn), a red banner takes up the entire page: “Due to urgent works, the zoo is closed from December 23 to mid-January 2022.” In addition to the work, the animal park is mainly the subject of a closure after the flight of a whole pack of wolves. Of the nine animals that escaped, four were shot. The other five were anesthetized.
At the time of the escape attempt last weekend, the animals managed to climb a fence without however succeeding in venturing into nature, specifies France Bleu. Visitors, few in number at the time of the incident, were then protected by an airtight enclosure. They still had to be evacuated. This “Security problem” therefore justified the closure of the zoo, effective since Thursday and “Until security conditions return to normal”, declared the secretary general of the prefecture of Tarn, Fabien Chollet.
“There was an incident with a pack of wolves that did not behave in a normal way” Sunday at the Trois Vallées zoo in Montredon-Labessonnié, he says. “The owner had to kill four wolves and called on the services of the State to anesthetize the other five”, he adds. The wolves who survived were returned to their enclosure, also reports France Bleu.
But the story has an air of déjà vu for the Trois Vallées zoo which, on October 22, 2020, was already hit by an administrative closure measure, on the order of the Minister for Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili. At issue: “Serious breaches” endangering the safety of some 600 animals of 70 different species on the premises, but also that of staff and visitors.
Terrified, the owner of the Three Valleys, Sauveur Ferrara, had then denounced a “Relentlessness” authorities against him, even speaking of “conspiracy” near the Dépêche du Midi.
The prefectural decree of 2020 was however suspended on the following November 2 by the Toulouse administrative court, “Because of the serious and manifestly illegal infringement of the right to property, the freedom of enterprise and the freedom of trade and industry”, for lack of prior formal notice. The zoo was finally able to conserve its animals. Asked this Friday by AFP, the park management did not react this time.