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BEARS

French farmers furious as France announces more bears for the Pyrenees

Dozens of farmers and lawmakers stormed out of a meeting Thursday with France's new environment minister after he confirmed that two more bears would soon be released into the Pyrenees mountains.

Published: 20 September 2018 15:31 CEST
French farmers furious as France announces more bears for the Pyrenees
Photo: AFP
Some 40 brown bears currently roam the range between France and Spain after France began importing them from Slovenia in 1996 after the native population 
had been hunted to near-extinction.
   
The latest move to increase their numbers infuriated farmers who have long complained about the predators killing sheep and other livestock.
 
The addition of two more females was announced by former environment minister Nicolas Hulot last March as part of a 10-year “Bear Plan” to increase 
their numbers to some 50 sexually mature bears.
   
Opponents had been hoping that following Hulot's shock resignation last month — he accused President Emmanuel Macron's government of insufficient action on green causes — his successor might roll back the plan.
 
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What's the story? Sheep carcasses, blood and scuffles in a French villageFarmers are watched by gendarmes as they protest the re-introduction of bears to the area in the south-western French department of Pyrenees-Atlantiques. Photo: AFP   

But Francois de Rugy, after meeting with around 60 farmers and lawmakers in the southwestern city of Pau, told journalists the bears would be released “by 
early October”.
 
The news prompted most of the participants at the meeting to walk out shortly after it started.
   
“What good is talking if the decision has already been made? We left,” said Etienne Serna, the mayor of Aramits who acts as spokesman for an anti-bear 
association.
   
Meanwhile, around 200 shepherds and farmers who had refused to meet with Rugy held a protest in Asasp-Arros, a neighbouring village at the foot of the Pyrenees.
   
“Using all possible means, we will refuse the re-introduction of bears on our land, where they have no place,” said Olivier Maurin, president of a local anti-bear group.
   
“And if we need weapons and rifles to make sure Francois de Rugy hears us, we'll use them,” he said next to a teddy bear hanging from a noose with the words “Wanted: Dead or Toothless”.
   
Police appeared to take the threat seriously, setting up roadblocks to the village and searching vehicles.
 
Environmental activists say the bears are necessary for ensuring the region's biodiversity, and point to recent elections of pro-bear mayors in several towns, despite the loss of hundreds of sheep and other livestock each year.
 
The government compensates farmers for any livestock deaths from bear attacks.

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HUNTING

Spanish conservationists lament ‘dark day’ as two brown bears shot by hunters

Two of Spain’s protected brown bears have been shot dead by hunters in separate incidents during wild boar hunts on Sunday, striking a blow to a conservation programme that has seen the population grow from near extinction.

Published: 30 November 2020 17:10 CET
Spanish conservationists lament 'dark day' as two brown bears shot by hunters
The bear Sarousse pictured here was shot dead by a boar hunter.

One adult female bear was shot dead by accident after reportedly being mistaken for a wild boar by a hunter in a conservation zone in the Palentina mountains near the town of Ventanilla in Castilla y Leon on Sunday lunchtime.

Another female bear, known as Sarousse, was killed apparently in self-defence by a hunter who disturbed the animal while hunting for wild boar in the Bardaji valley in the Robagorza region of the Spanish Pyrenees.  

The hunter responsible told police that he had no choice but to shoot the bear as it approached him in an “aggressive manner” when it was disturbed by dogs flushing out boar during the hunt.

Sarousse was a 21-year-old bear that had been captured in Slovenia and re-released into the wild on the French side of the Pyrenees in 2006 in a conservation programme aimed at boosting a population that was facing extinction.

Since 2010 she had established a territory on the Spanish side of the mountain range but was described by one local newspaper in Aragon, El Heraldo, as “a lonely bear who unfortunately was of little use to the bear population as she bore no cubs and lived an isolated life in the Turbón massif, far from other concentrations of bear popultions in the region”.

She is thought to have been responsible for frequent raids on local farms where she killed at least four sheep this year and raided at least ten beehives, the newspaper reported. 

Investigations into both deaths have been opened by Se`rona, the wildlife unit of the Guardia Civil.

The deaths raised questions over the issuing of hunting licences within conservation habitats which are known to be home to the endangered species.

A tweet from the Oso Pardo Foundation lamented that it was “a dark day” for the conservation of the  Brown Bears which in 2019 were thought to numberaround 330 bears in the Cantabrian Mountains and more than 50 in the Pyrenees.

 

Two other brown bears have been killed this year. the cadavre of one male named Cachou was found at the bottom of a cliff in the Aran valley in Catalonia, and a man was arrested earlier in November after an investigation determined that the animal had in fact been poisoned.

While in France in June, the body of a bear that had been shot was discovered in Ariège. 

But on a happy note, six new litters were recorded this spring with a total of 12 bear cubs. 

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