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Pyrenees: decrease in the number of animals attacked by bears, according to the prefecture

2021-12-08T20:29:37.049Z


The number of animals attacked by bears in the Pyrenees fell in 2021, according to official figures mentioned Wednesday, December 8 during the ...


The number of animals attacked by bears in the Pyrenees fell in 2021, according to official figures mentioned Wednesday, December 8 during the first meeting of the new “

prefect bear

” with supporters and opponents of the presence of the plantigrade.

Read alsoHow the bear and the wolf learned to stop being afraid of man

According to participants in this closed-door meeting of the Pastoralism and Bears group, the authorities presented a roadmap for 2022 including an increase in the “

bear budget

” beyond nine million euros, aimed in particular at increasing measures to protection of attacked animals, the vast majority of sheep.

Animals attacked overcounted in previous years

A few days after a wild boar hunt in the town of Seix (Ariège), during which a hunter was seriously injured on November 20 by a bear he then killed, the prefecture announced the appointment of Jean-Yves Chiaro as prefect delegate "

in charge of bear subjects in the Pyrenees mountains

". At the end of Wednesday's meeting, François Thibault, who represented the Confédération paysanne, described this appointment as "a

good thing because it is a sign that the issue is growing in importance and that the State is concerned about it

" .

Another representative of breeders, Yann de Kérimel (Rural Coordination), contested the figures of the prefecture for which, in 2021, the second year of consecutive decline, the number of animals attacked is "

lower than all annual reports since 2017

" .

"

We can believe that it is decreasing, but it is because we overcounted those of the previous years

", estimated Yann de Kérimel.

Read also More and more bears inhabit the Pyrenees

Among the pro-bears, Alain Marek, Ariège delegate of Aspas (Association for the protection of wild animals), deemed sufficient the current annual increase of 10% in the number of bears, not wanting new introductions likely to undermine the necessary “

dialogue

”, especially with breeders. For Patrick Leyrissoux, of Ferus, another pro-bear association, "

we must continue to put protections

" for other animals in order to further limit the number of bear attacks.

On the other hand, for Yann de Kérimel, these measures harm the ewes, which are also “

wild animals

” and are not, for example, intended to be grouped together every evening to avoid attacks from bears “

which are not Pyrenees and unfortunately have the habit of approaching man and herds

”.

In the 1990s, France initiated a program to reintroduce plantigrades from Slovenia when the bear population in the Pyrenees was threatened with extinction.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-12-08

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