Wolf taxidermied by Jean Hermann (Grey wolf, Canis lupus)

Museum closed for renovation
Le loup de Jean Hermann (Loup gris, Canis lupus), musée Zoologique.

 

 

In the city

This specimen was shot in the forest of Haguenau in 1798, by a lumberjack from Niederbetschdorf called Kilian Bucher. In his article on "the wolves in the former county of Saarwerden" published in 1896, Arthur Benoit tells us that "the worker Bucher was on his way to begin cutting wood in the forest when he was attacked by this monstrous beast", before killing it with two blows of his axe. For this feat he was given a reward of 150 francs and 12 francs for the animal's skin.

It was Jean Hermann himself who stuffed the animal for his natural history cabinet, which served to create the Museum. The extermination policy quickly eliminated the wolf from the forests of Alsace and, by the start of the 20th century, it had disappeared completely. The Museum holds the skull of the last wolf, killed by Xavier Froesch in Hirzbach on August 30, 1908.

A hundred years later, however, the wolf has reappeared in the Vosges mountains: several individuals were sighted in 2012. They are thought to have come north from the Italian Alps, and are possibly in the process of reoccupying the Jura and the Vosges mountains.

Le loup de Jean Hermann (Loup gris, Canis lupus), musée Zoologique.
Le loup de Jean Hermann (Loup gris, Canis lupus), musée Zoologique.