Brown bear numbers in France rise for first time in 30 years

The number of brown bears living in the Pyrenees, between south-west France and Spain, rose in 2023 for the first time since 1990, French authorities have said.

“The size of the brown bear population is gradually increasing in the Pyrenees,” the Brown Bear Network, part of the French Office of Biodiversity, said in a statement on Tuesday (April 2). 

Some 83 brown bears and 16 bear cubs were recorded in the Pyrenees last year, according to the Brown Bear Network, up from 76 adult bears in 2022 and 70 in 2021. 

The French government started a programme to reintroduce brown bears into the Pyrenees, where they were under threat of extinction, in 1990. 

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Brown bears were recorded across some 7,100km in the mountain range along France’s border with Spain. 

They have been spotted in five French departments – Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Garonne, Ariège and Pyrénées-Orientales, and in the Navarre, Aragon and Catalonia regions of Spain. They have also been spotted in Andorra. 

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