A brown bear like those who live in the Pyrenees.

Drawing.

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Ducan Usher - Solent News - Sipa

  • Environmental protection associations welcome the decision of the Hautes-Pyrénées prefect not to resort to increased scaring against the Goiat bear.

  • In enhanced mode, scaring allows non-lethal shots.

  • Goiat is known to be particularly voracious.

In the Pyrenees, the Goiat bear will pass between the rubber balls.

He will be able to quietly seek a den for the winter without fear of being harassed by scarers.

Several nature protection associations announced on Thursday that their request for a free appeal was heard by the prefect of the Hautes-Pyrénées Rodrigue Furcy.

"He has decided to repeal the decrees authorizing the reinforced scaring of the Goiat bear," they indicate.

Scaring, experienced in the Pyrenees in 2019, was authorized on a larger scale this year by ministerial decree.

Its enhanced level allows, in addition to fog horns and blinding lights, to carry out non-lethal shots on a bear to keep it away from a herd.

Threats of legal action

The associations are opposed to it, deeming it dangerous for both men and plantigrades.

Even the experts of the very official National Council for the Protection of Nature doubt its effectiveness.

Moreover, to convince the prefect, the pro bears threatened him with an appeal to the administrative court.

This Thursday, bear advocates salute "the attention and listening" of the representative of the State, hoping "that this wisdom will continue and inspire other prefects who give in too quickly to the temptation to hit the bears rather than reinforcing the means for peaceful coexistence ”.

Goiat, the very media bear

Other appeals are underway against scaring orders including those, numerous, taken in Ariège, by far the department most affected by bear predations.

Associations like Férus or Pays de l'Ours-Adet also attacked the ministerial decree before the Council of State.

The Goiat bear, reintroduced to Catalonia in 2016, is known to have a heavy paw.

The Spaniards complain about it and, on the French side, he is responsible for three attacks in five days in May 2019. He also put himself in value as when he was immortalized in April 2020 by a photographer, alone on a ridge rocky Pyrenees.

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