- With 52 animals counted in 2019, the bear population of the Pyrenees has never been so large for decades.
- However, the risks of inbreeding are great and pro bear associations are demanding new introductions, vigorously opposed by opponents.
After the Catalan government and the Spanish NGO Fundación Oso Pardo on Tuesday, the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB, ex-ONFCS) published on Thursday its annual report on the bear of the Pyrenees. According to this document from the cross-border animal monitoring group, 52 plantigrades were identified in the massif in 2019, three more than in 2018.
A symbolic mark is crossed for a species which had only five indigenous representatives, isolated in Béarn, before the start of the policy of introducing Slovenian bears in 1996.
📈🐻 Al menos 52 osos en los Pirineos en el censo de 2019
De ellos 8 son crías nacidas en el año.
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Foto: osa Caramellita con sus crías in 2016 @PirosLife pic.twitter.com/T1XQhQn2ec
“On the French side, for associations like Ferus and Pays de l'ours-Adet, it is a recognition of the work carried out, underlines Sabine Matraire, vice-president of Ferus. Originally, the device was presented as an experimental reintroduction. It turned out to be a biological success. But just because we have crossed a threshold does not mean that this population should be considered saved, as some elected officials may want to believe. "
On the side of the opponents of the plantigrade, the speech is necessarily quite different. "The increase does not surprise us, and it is a minimum figure, because some bears may not be spotted a year, and reappear the year after, says Rémi Denjean, Ariège breeder and co-president of the Association for Development lasting identity of the Pyrenees (Addip). The situation is much more difficult with 50 bears than with 20, and it will be even more difficult with 70 or more. "
Ten cubs spotted, six animals considered dead
In detail, ten births were identified in 2019 (a record, tied with 2016 and 2017) since five different females each had two pups: Isil, Caramelles, Bambou, Fadeta and Sorita. However, the cubs in the latter were probably killed by another bear. In total, six plantigrades were considered dead in 2019, most because they had not given any sign of life since 2017. Among them: the two cubs of Sorita, but also the female Hvala and the male Fifonet.
On April 9, the discovery of Cachou's corpse in the Val d'Aran (Spain), sowed dismay among environmentalists and gave rise to a start of controversy around the cause of this death. But the disappearance of this five-year-old male poses another problem for the supporters of the animal: the lack of genetic diversity in the bears of the massif.
VIDEO. The Pyros bear is no longer the Casanova of the Pyrenees #biodiversity https://t.co/rSOgUNGC1K via @ 20minutes pic.twitter.com/5XJ7r7wmpi
- 20 Minutes Toulouse (@ 20minutestoul) April 7, 2016"Pyros is the father of the majority of cubs born in the Pyrenees," observes Sabine Matraire. No longer seen since April 2017, when he was approaching 30, this dominant male introduced in 1997 is probably dead.
Respectively released in 2006 on the French side and in 2016 in Spain, Balou and Goiat were to take over as stallions. But the first had only one known descendant, the unfortunate Cachou, while the second seems for the moment mainly interested in long mountain walks, during which he sometimes crunches some equines.
Emmanuel Macron hostile to reintroductions
"A report from the National Museum of Natural History in 2013 recommended the release of 6 to 17 individuals, including at least six females," recalls Sabine Matraire. In the bear section, Sorita and Claverina were introduced in October 2018 in Béarn, but the associations are calling for other releases, vigorously fought by opponents, recently reinforced by the Head of State.
In January in Pau, Emmanuel Macron thus promised a delegation of breeders that there would be no new reintroductions before the end of his mandate and that he planned to withdraw from the massif of bears considered "problematic" " This Béarnaise visit came a few months after a deadly summer for several flocks of sheep on the Pyrenean mountain pastures, victims of derailments where the bear was often the number 1 suspect.
Rémi Denjean was present in Pau. "The President of the Republic also spoke to us about bringing back a little concerted action in this matter," adds the co-chair of the Addip. It is a question of reactivating governance bodies with a more important role given to local elected officials, less distant from the problems than the prefect of the region [the prefect of Occitania is also coordinator of the Pyrenees massif]. "
Mayors and departmental advisers are often committed to the anti-bear cause, especially in the center of the chain and in Ariège, where most of the Ursine population is concentrated.
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