Some 150 people supported by 14,000 petitioners in Toulouse, some 2,000 protesters around the Etang de Lers in Ariège: the pro and anti-bear camps mobilized on Saturday after the slaughter of a bear at the start of June revived the conflict. opponent. In Toulouse, in front of the prefecture, the demonstrators, some 150 according to the police, demanded the replacement of this specimen, a four-year-old male, shot dead in early June near summer pastures in Ariège, at the call of the Coordination of Pyrenean associations for the bear (Cap ours).
“We are 14,000 to demonstrate”, in this sense launched to the demonstrators the leader of the pro-bear camp, Alain Reynes, invoking the result, “observed by bailiff” of an online “tele-demonstration” organized jointly. At the same time, nearly 2,000 breeders, elected officials, agricultural unionists and hunters, gathered in Ariège, around the Pond of Lers, at the call of the anti-bear camp. They demand in particular the end of the releases of bears, and the suppression of the most predatory specimens.
10 million euros on the table
"It is essential to replace the animal killed, each specimen counts" launched to the Toulouse demonstrators Alain Reynes, recalling that the State had explicitly committed to it in its bear plan. The death of the bear has relaunched the recurrent conflict between breeders and defenders of biodiversity since France began in the 90s, in compliance with its European obligations, the repopulation of bears in the Pyrenean massif.
"We must find the culprits, that the case is not closed without further action," said Alain Marek, regional delegate of the Association for the Protection of Wild Animals. The state has filed a complaint but the investigation has so far been unsuccessful, while the offer by the NGO Sea Shepherd of a bonus of 45,000 euros for any information leading to the perpetrators - to which Cap ours did not s is not associated- set fire to the powders among anti-bears.
Struggling to restore calm, the state had frozen its reintroduction program in January, citing "a favorable dynamic of the Ursine population", with about fifty specimens now listed in the Pyrenees. But for pro-bears, this figure does not guarantee the survival of the species. Some 10 million euros will also be mobilized in 2020 to support the coexistence between bears and pastoralism in the Pyrenees, announced on Thursday the Prefect of Occitania.
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His supporters demonstrate in Toulouse, his opponents in Ariège… How the bear war started again
- Animals
- Pyrenees
- Toulouse
- Planet