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How elusive brown bears have become a tourist attraction in northern Spain

Daylight is only just breaking over Spain's Cantabrian Mountains and already a dozen enthusiasts are up and about in the hope of spotting a brown bear.

How elusive brown bears have become a tourist attraction in northern Spain
Stock photo of a brown bear with cubs in Spain. Photo: AFP

Shy creatures which feature on the list of Spain's endangered species, Cantabrian brown bears have been growing in number in this mountainous northwestern region after almost disappearing.

Fernando Garitagoita has rented a house in La Peral, a hamlet in the Somiedo nature reserve in the Asturias region, to be first in line in the morning to film them with his telephoto lens.

On holiday with his family, the house is just metres from a hill where dozens of passionate bear watchers set up camp every day, equipped with powerful telescopes and expensive photography equipment.


Photo by Gabriel Bouys / AFP

Silently they wait for a bear to emerge from the forest and clamber up rocky scree slopes to eat buckthorn berries which grow on a shrub that fruits in late August, says Garitagoita.

A stir of excitement runs through the group when a bear is spotted pawing at a bush to get hold of the glossy black berries.   

“It's emotional, you feel joy, happiness. You get an adrenaline rush,” admits the 53-year-old professor.

“For me, it's a unique moment.”   

Regaining ground

In the 1980s, it was very rare to see a bear in the Cantabrian Mountains, a range stretching more than 400 kilometres (around 250 miles) along Spain's northern coast, from the Pyrenees in the east to Portugal's northernmost tip in the west.

Not only was their habitat under threat from the construction of roads and other infrastructure but the bears were still seen as dangerous pests, with their numbers reduced by both illegal hunting and people leaving out poisoned
bait.   

Down to just 60 or 70 in number, they became critically endangered, says Guillermo Palomero, president of the Fundacion Oso Pardo (Brown Bear Foundation), an NGO founded in 1992 to promote the peaceful co-existence of
humans and bears.   


Guillermo Palomero head of the Oso Pardo foundation. Photo by Gabriel Bouys / AFP

But following a dedicated campaign by conservationists, the population has grown steadily and the area now counts between 330 and 350 brown bears, among them more than 40 females who produce cubs every year.

Unlike in the Pyrenees, where the creatures had to be reintroduced after being hunted to extinction, the brown bears of Cantabria are gradually repopulating their own native territory.

Big fruit lovers, they can even be seen venturing into the orchards around northern towns like Oviedo and Leon.

And a young adventurous male was spotted in northern Portugal in May where bears have not been seen since the 19th century.

READ MORE: 

Involving the public

The spectacular recovery is the result of efforts to protect the environment as well as to educate people about the importance of bear populations, says Palomero.

The entire mountain range is today a protected conservation zone, and a project to connect the area's two main populations has seen the creation of “bear corridors” that enable those living in the west to safely reconnect with those in the east.

For decades, bears living in the two territories had been separated by new roads. 

“Involving the public was key to shifting in a very short time between a negative image of bears to one which was neutral or even largely positive,” Palomero says.

Not only did that involve dispelling the myth that bears attack humans, but they also erected more than 1,500 electric fences to cordon off hives and orchards, ran an information campaign in schools and the media, and staged a crackdown on poaching.

“Before, a poacher who killed was a local hero, but now if someone boasts in a bar about killing a bear, one of his neighbours will likely report him,” he adds.

And any harm or damage caused by the bears, be it to livestock, beehives or fruit trees, is fully compensated, thanks to funding from the European Union as part of its efforts to protect threatened species.

“It shouldn't cost anyone a single euro to live side-by-side with a bear,” insists Palomero.

Bears as tourist magnet


Photo by Gabriel Bouys / AFP

The bears have become a magnet for tourists in the Somiedo nature reserve, says local mayor Belarmino Fernandez.   

When he first became mayor 25 years ago, the area didn't attract any tourism, he says.

Today, however, this community of 1,300 people boasts 90 tourist shops and hotels that count around 1,400 beds.

Nor has the bears' presence on the reserve prevented livestock farming.

There are now 8,000 head of cattle in Somiedo, compared with 5,000 when the park was established in 1988, says Fernandez.   

In fact, wolves pose a much greater threat than bears, with their attacks on calves and foals 20 times more frequent than those by a bear, says Simon Lopez Cabezas, who heads Somiedo's association of livestock farmers.

But he is wary that the bears could one day pose a threat to the cattle.    

“The bear is not a natural predator but with time, we will have problems,” he warns.

Model for the Pyrenees?

In the Pyrenees, where herders raise sheep, reviving the local bear population has been no picnic, with farmers up in arms about the re-introduction of brown bears from Slovenia, whom they see as a menace to
their flocks.   

And Palomero is keenly aware the situation in the Pyrenees needs to be carefully managed.

“We must protect the flocks, a flock of sheep which isn't protected is one that will be attacked by bears,” he admits. 

“But it can be done… especially now that the European Commission is willing to show support by covering 100 percent of the costs.”

By AFP's Patrick Rahir in Pola de Somiedo, Spain

READ ALSO: IN PICS: Eight of Spain's most endangered species

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‘Città 30’: Which Italian cities will bring in new speed limits?

Bologna has faced heavy criticism - including from the Italian government - after introducing a speed limit of 30km/h, but it's not the only city to approve these rules.

'Città 30': Which Italian cities will bring in new speed limits?

Bologna on January 17th became Italy’s first major city to introduce a speed limit of 30km/h on 70 percent of roads in the city centre under its ‘Città 30’ plan, first announced in 2022, and initially set to come into force by June 2023.

The move made Bologna one of a growing number of European cities, including Paris, Madrid, Brussels, and Bilbao, to bring in a 30km/h limit aimed at improving air quality and road safety.

But the change was met last week with a go-slow protest by Bologna’s taxi drivers and, perhaps more surprisingly, criticism from the Italian transport ministry, which financed the measure.

Matteo Salvini, who is currently serving as Italy’s transport minister, this week pledged to bring in new nationwide rules dictating speed limits in cities that would reverse Bologna’s new rule.

Salvini’s League party has long criticised Bologna’s ‘Città 30’ plan, claiming it would make life harder for residents as well as people working in the city and would create “more traffic and fines”.

OPINION: Italians and their cars are inseparable – will this ever change?

Bologna’s speed limit has sparked a heated debate across Italy, despite the increasingly widespread adoption of such measures in many other cities in Europe and worldwide in recent years.

While Bologna is the biggest Italian city to bring in the measure, it’s not the first – and many more local authorities, including in Rome, are now looking to follow their example in the next few years.

Some 60 smaller cities and towns in Italy have adopted the measure so far, according to Sky TG24, though there is no complete list.

This compares to around 200 French towns and cities to adopt the rule, while in Spain the same limit has applied to 70 percent of all the country’s roads since since May 2021 under nationwide rules, reports LA7.

The first Italian town to experiment with a 30 km/h speed limit was Cesena, south of Bologna, which introduced it in 1998. Since then, the local authority has found that serious accidents have halved, while the number of non-serious ones has remained unchanged.

Olbia, in Sardinia, also famously introduced the speed limit in 2021.

The city of Parma is planning to bring in the same rules from 2024, while the Tuscan capital of Florence approved five 30km/h zones in the city centre earlier this month.

Turin is set to bring in its first 30km/h limits this year as part of its broader plan to improve transport infrastructure, aimed at reducing smog and increasing livability.

READ ALSO: Why electric cars aren’t more popular in Italy

Meanwhile, the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, has promised to introduce the limit on 70 percent of the capital’s roads by the end of his mandate, which expires in 2026.

In Milan, while the city council has voted in favour of lower speed limits and other traffic limitations on central roads, it’s not clear when these could come into force.

Milan mayor Beppe Sala this week said a 30 km/h limit would be “impossible” to implement in the Lombardy capital.

And it’s notable that almost all of the cities looking at slowing down traffic are in the north or centre-north of Italy.

There has been little interest reported in the measures further south, where statistics have shown there are a higher number of serious road accidents – though the total number of accidents is in fact higher in the north.

According to the World Health Organisation the risk of death to a pedestrian hit by a car driven at 50 km/h is 80 percent. The risk drops to 10 percent at 30 km/h.

The speed limit on roads in Italian towns and cities is generally 50, and on the autostrade (motorways) it’s up to 130.

Many Italian residents are heavily dependent on cars as their primary mode of transport: Italy has the second-highest rate of car ownership in Europe, with 670 vehicles per 1,000 residents, second only to Luxembourg with 682, according to statistics agency Eurostat.

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