The famous footprint discovered at Ondes, 30 km north of Toulouse.

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Field of Actions

  • The bear technical team is categorical: it was not a plantigrade that left the photographed imprint in Ondes, 30 km north of Toulouse.

  • And no animal listed matches.

  • The Garonne has also swallowed up the famous track.

The seductive thesis of the adventurer bear who leaves his Pyrenees to stroll in Ondes, 30 kilometers north of Toulouse, is no longer relevant.

The photo of the mysterious imprint taken on March 10 by volunteers from the Champ d'Actions association passed through the Toulouse Museum of Natural History to end up in Saint-Gaudens, on the screens of the Ours technical team.

And "for us, there is no photo, it is not a bear", affirms Pierre-Yves Quenette, the person in charge.

Why ?

Because the specialist, used to tracking plantigrades, finds the shape “far too round, too geometric”.

"Usually we see the pads and the palm of the paw is more elongated, more in the shape of a bean", he adds. Not to mention that a finger would be missing and therefore a claw ... And that the presence of a bear that would not leave a zoo or a circus so far from its mountains is "highly improbable".

Erased by the waves

But if it's not a bear, then what?

At the Museum, Henri Cap, responsible for zoological collections, found no correspondence in the animal kingdom.

“It may be a trace left by an object, an agricultural machine,” he supposes.

"It's quite possible", approves Pierre-Yves Quenette.

Even if it also sweeps away other animal hypotheses: "A horse whose iron nails protrude" and which would have slipped in the mud of the banks of the Garonne leaving scratches, or even "two ungulates" - deer or wild boar - whose traces would have stuck, suggesting a larger animal.

The riddle of the Waveprint will never be solved.

"With the rain and the slight rise of the Garonne, the imprint has disappeared under the water", indicates Florence Ducroquetz, president of Champs d'Actions, at the origin of the call on Facebook to identify the trace.

“The Garonne will keep its mystery,” the volunteer concludes nicely.

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