U-turn on Pyrénées bear

CAMPAIGNERS opposed to bears in the French Pyrénées are celebrating after the government backtracked on the introduction of a new animal.

While the Ecology ministry says that “maintaining a viable population” remains an important objective, it has decided against introducing a new bear to the mountains this year, considering the pressure farmers are under due to dry weather. Many bear opponents come from the farming community.

Farmer Francis Ader, president of anti-bear group ADIP said there have been “hundreds” of attacks on livestock and the presence of the bears forces them to “completely change the way we work”. “They are very disruptive,” he added. Sheep farming had been shown to benefit biodiversity and this was under threat from the bears, he claimed. Environmental groups had pressed the Ecology Ministry to stick to its promises to introduce a bear this year to replace “Franska”, a female killed by a car in 2007.

There are only around 20 bears in France, following the introduction of three in 1996-7 and five in 2006 to boost the native population. There are no longer any native-born ones after “Cannelle” was shot by a hunter in 2004. Another bear was found dead at the foot of a cliff, from where it had supposedly fallen.

Groups in favour of bears in the Pyrénées, their last habitat in France, said the government had broken its word. “They have signed the death warrant of bears in the Béarn [western Pyrénées] which have been present there for a millennia,” said the association Pays de l’Ours-Adet. The planned reintroduction would have been insufficient to ensure the bears prosper, a spokesman said, but they had trusted the government’s claim to be going “slowly but surely”. Five former ecology ministers have signed a statement backing the introduction of more bears.