On the benches of the naturalization laboratory of the Toulouse natural history museum, Caramelles, a bear killed by a hunter in 2021 in the Pyrenees, falls back on her feet, far from the tensions aroused by the reintroduction of the large predator.

The silhouette of the bear - reconstituted in polyethylene, a light and easy-to-sculpt material - regains its curves under the skilled fingers of the taxidermists, before being covered with its fur.

Killed by a hunter she had attacked while she was with her cubs

Caramelles was killed in November 2021 on the heights of the village of Seix (Ariège), by a hunter whom she had attacked and injured in one leg while she was with her young.

A judicial investigation for the destruction of a protected species was opened by the Foix prosecutor's office, the beat having taken place partly in a zone prohibited from hunting.

Opposed, like many breeders, to the presence of the bear in the Pyrenees, the hunters plead "the self-defense" of their peer and denounce "relentlessness".

In the meantime, the museum teams have been able to recover the animal, with the authorization of the courts and in partnership with the Toulouse veterinary school, and are proceeding to naturalize it.

“She was magnificent, she had an extraordinary coat, this bear”

After removing the animal's flesh, the taxidermists thin and tan its skin.

Kept in a freezer, it is then worked to regain flexibility and fit the shape of the model.

"She was magnificent, she had an extraordinary coat, this bear," smiles Brian Aïello, one of these experts, caressing her "lively" dress, characteristic of the brown bears of Slovenian origin, introduced during the 1990s into the border mountains of France and Spain.


The process, which lasts about three months for an animal of this build - Caramelles weighed around 120-140 kg - allows it to be studied.

“What we don't know about bears is that they have huge ears,” exclaims Brian Aïello.

Already several naturalized bears

Caramelles is not the first plantigrade to pass through his hands.

He naturalized several bears in the massif, including Cannelle, the last of the Pyrenean line.

“These are very similar situations,” he explains: two adult bears, shot and killed in the presence of their cubs.

A hunter had shot Cannelle in November 2004 in the Aspe valley (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), during a wild boar hunt.

Indicted for destroying a protected species, he was sentenced in 2010 to pay 11,000 euros in damages to pro-bear associations.

The accident had moved the defenders of the mammal and marked "a breaking point" in the history of the plantigrades: "after it, the Pyrenean genetic stock disappeared", recalls Alexandre Mille, heritage curator and head of the collections department of the Museum.

The choice fell on an "alert" posture of "vigilant mother"

During her naturalization in 2013, "highly anticipated", "we asked ourselves the question of whether we should naturalize her in a downcast position or not", remembers Brian Aïello.

The message could have been "very harsh", referring visitors "to our inability to maintain this kind of species".

The option was therefore ruled out in favor of a “natural position”, walking, immortalized by a photo of the animal.

"We chose to represent it as we can see a bear in its natural context, that is to say very calm", explains the taxidermist.

For Caramelles, the choice fell on an "alert" posture of "vigilant mother" because this bear was "one of the most productive females" and gave birth to around twenty cubs, he adds. .

Raising shields of breeders

While they were on the verge of extinction in the Pyrenees at the beginning of the 1990s with only five individuals, the implementation of a program to reintroduce brown bears from Slovenia has made it possible to develop their population, estimated at about 70 today.



This increase, however, arouses an outcry from breeders, who accuse the bears of attacking the flocks of sheep during the mountain pastures.

In this context of tensions, the Museum, specifies the curator, seeks both to preserve "the genetic diversity lost" with the disappearance of the Pyrenean lineage, and to "contribute to the debate" by presenting these animals in such a way as to "get out of these sticking points.

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