The phenomenon of murdered bears in the Pyrenees worries associations

After the Cachou bear and the male supposed to be “Gribouille”, a third bear, the female Sarousse, was killed on November 29th.

In less than a year, three plantigrades were found dead in the Franco-Spanish massif, including two murdered by firearms.

The FERUS association, the first national association for the protection of bears in France, denounces "

a black year

" for bears in the Pyrenees, pointing to the "

silence of representatives of the French state

".

Read also: Brussels asks France to better protect the brown bear

While the European Commission warns of the “

still unfavorable conservation status

” of bears in France, several French and Spanish NGOs demand the immediate reintroduction of these bears, as required by the “Brown Bear Action Plan 2018-2028 ".

These associations are supported by 59% of French people who, according to an Ifop poll carried out on November 18, say they are in favor of replacing the bear killed on the French side.

Three bears killed in a few months

On November 29, the Spanish authorities reported the death of the Sarousse bear, 21, captured in Slovenia and introduced into the Pyrenees in 2006. The female was "

shot dead

" during a beatings. wild boar in the Spanish Central Pyrenees, in the Bardaji Valley in the province of Huesca.

The regional government of Aragon has indicated that an investigation, carried out by the Nature Protection Services of the Spanish Civil Guard (Seprona), has been opened.

The person who fired the shots "

said he acted in self-defense

", the authorities

told

AFP.

The man allegedly fired three times from a short distance.

A few months earlier, at the beginning of June, another 4-year-old brown bear, who would be named "Gribouille", had been killed on the French side, shot with a gun near the French ski resort of Guzet. , in Ariège, between the municipalities of Aulus-les-Bains and Ustou.

His body was discovered near the Cirque de Gérac, at an altitude of 1,800 meters, by experts from the French Biodiversity Office who were carrying out reports of predation: breeders had declared sheep killed not far from where Gribouille's remains were found.

During a press conference, the prosecutor of Foix Laurent Dumaine had declared that the autopsy would be carried out at the veterinary school of Toulouse, specifying that an investigation was opened for "

unauthorized destruction of a protected species"

: the killer faces three years imprisonment and a 150,000 euro fine.

In a tweet published on June 9 during the discovery of the body, the Minister of Ecological Transition Élisabeth Borne shared images of the murdered bear, indicating that the state would file a complaint.

Finally, on April 9, a 6-year-old male bear, Cachou, was found dead in the Aran Valley in Spain, near the border with France.

An investigation was opened and an autopsy was carried out on April 14 at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

The Lérida prosecutor in Catalonia told AFP that the death was due to "

poisoning with ethylene glycol

", an antifreeze used as a coolant.

In a statement, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia had also specified that the police were closely interested in six people, including a forest ranger.

According to the environmental organization FERUS, this environmental officer from the General Council of Aran in charge of the safety and monitoring of the bears in this colony is at the origin of Cachou's death: the officer responsible for monitoring the bear would indeed be "

indicted on three counts, including the poisoning of the Cachou bear

".

“

The Catalan investigation showed that a network of people had been formed to destroy bears in the Pyrenees.

French people are involved, and we believe that there is a link between those who shot Gribouille and those who poisoned Cachou,

”

FERUS told

Figaro

.

The thorny issue of bear reintroduction

"

In critically endangered

" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Pyrenean bear population is still very low and "

does

bear no human cause of death

," said to the

BBC

the director of the Pays-de-l'Ours-Adet association, Alain Reynes, deploring that, six months after Gribouille's death, the government has still not announced his replacement.

Around 150 at the beginning of the 20th century, bears were indeed only 5 in the Pyrenees in 1995, indicates the Regional Directorate for the Environment of Occitania (DREAL).

Currently, if about fifty energumènes live in the massif, the Pyrenean bears still represent the smallest bear population in Europe, due to a problem of "

genetic diversity

".

Much hope was in this sense placed in Cachou and Gribouille who "

had a different genetic heritage

" from the rest of their Pyrenean congeners.

But Cachou's arrival was not viewed positively by all mountain dwellers: in August 2019, the authorities of the Aran Valley had demanded the “

immediate withdrawal

” of Cachou, denouncing his predatory behavior and the accusing of killing five horses.

The bear, a danger for man or a danger for the bear?

On both the Spanish and French sides, the presence of bears in the massif is therefore not unanimous.

In France, bearers are numerous among breeders, who accuse the plantigrades of attacking their herds.

An increase in losses attributed to the bear was indeed observed: 1,173 animals were compensated in 2019 against around 500 in 2018. But, according to the coordinator of the FERUS Patrick Leyrissoux, only 563 compensation could be attributed in 2019 to the bear: FERUS points out that 610 animals last year were found in derelictions - the role of the bear cannot therefore be directly demonstrated.

Read also: Pyrenees: call for the replacement of the two killed bears

The pro-bears, for their part, denounce the reluctance of breeders to protect themselves with sheepdogs or even with the help of electrified parks, 80% subsidized by the State.

They also recall that, at the beginning of April, an additional envelope of 500,000 euros had been allocated to funds for the cohabitation between pastoralism and bears.

Finally, faced with those who would invoke self-defense to justify their act, DREAL replies that "

it is extremely rare for a bear to attack a man

": in 57% of cases the bear flees, and, only in 2% of the cases it makes a charge of intimidation.

"

We must, in the Pyrenees, relearn how to live with bears

", insists Alain Reynes, adding that "

knowledge of the species must be reintroduced at the same time as bears

".