[pyrnet] Re: last she-bear in the Pyrenees shot

[Shirley McGreal <smcgreal@ippl.org>]

Read and weep! Shirley McGreal

November 04, 2004

Hunters kill last female bear native to Pyrenees
From Charles Bremner in Paris

THE might of the French State was deployed yesterday to find and save a
bear cub after hunters killed its mother, the last native she-bear in the
Pyrenees.

As gendarmes and wildlife officials sealed off a wide zone in the Aspe
Valley near the Spanish border in the western Pyrenees, President Chirac
joined the outcry over the death of Cannelle (Cinnamon), the 15-year-old
mother shot at close range when she apparently charged a group of
boar-hunters.

"The animal's death is a great loss for biodiversity," M Chirac told the
weekly Cabinet meeting. Serge Lepeltier, the Environment Minister, called
the killing an "ecological disaster".

The ten-month-old cub ran from its mother's side when she was shot and
disappeared into the undergrowth.

Philippe Grégoire, the Prefect (governor) of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques
département, ordered extraordinary measures to ensure the cub's survival in
the wild, including a ban on hunting and dog-walking in the Aspe area.

"The big problem is the destiny of the cub. It is our duty to guarantee his
survival," M Gregoire said. "The cub is not tiny. There is abundant food
where he lives. He will not be captured and must be left alone. If he is not
disturbed, he has a serious chance of survival."

Cannelle was the last surviving female bear of indigenous stock. There are
believed to be two indigenous males among the 15 to 18 other bears in the
French Pyrenees.

These are mainly animals or their descendants imported from Slovenia and
Croatia in the 1990s in a campaign to restore what used to be a thriving
brown bear population in the mountains.

An investigating judge has opened an inquiry to determine possible criminal
liability for the shooting, which was the most serious recent incident in
the running war between wildlife defenders and France's powerful hunting
lobby.

In 1997 two cubs survived after hunters killed Melba, another indigenous
bear.

Cannelle's cub, whose sex is not known, is believed to have been sired by
one of the Slovenian bears.

Bernard Place, president of the local hunting association, said that the
killing was "an irredeemable ecological waste" but that the hunter had acted
purely in self-defence, fearing for his life. "He did everything humanly
possible to avoid the tragedy at risk to his life," he said.

The six hunters told police that the bear had panicked when it came across
them and their dogs on Monday during an All Saints' Day hunt for sangliers.
The wild boar are flushed out by hunting dogs into the sights of waiting
guns every autumn across the wilder parts of France.

Wildlife groups said that the shooters had no business in that part of the
valley because they had been told that Cannelle and her cub were there. M
Place said that his organisation had been notified about the presence of the
protected animals. "There should never have been a hunt there," he said.
Pyrenean shepherds complain that the bears kill their animals, while
wildlife groups say the great majority of deaths are the work of wild dogs.

BEAR FACTS

The Pyrenean brown bear (Ursus arctos) is Europe's smallest bear. Adult
males weigh up to 200kg (440lb) and are 1m (3ft 3in) tall when on four legs

1990: Only seven left in Pyrenees, after being numerous in Middle Ages
1996: Three bears introduced into Pyrenees from Slovenia by European Union
Life programme
1997: Hunter kills Melba, a female bear
2003: Fifteen bears counted in Pyrenees, but only two females of cub-bearing
age
2004: Cannelle, last native Pyrenean female, shot dead