More bears in the woods

Press, 24 October 1989, Page 12

More bears in the woods

From a correspondent in the Midi for the “Economist”

“FEW people have never seen a bear, a common creature there is no need to describe.” That may have been true in the fourteenth century, when Count Gaston Phebus of Foix, was writing, but recently Pyrenean nature-lovers have been shocked by the unbearable news that their region’s Ursus arctos is on the verge of extinction. Only 15 bears are believed to survive along the Pyrenees, the mountainous region that stretches from the Altantic to the Mediterranean. Nine live in an area of natural parks in the west. The other six are scattered along the chain itself and are for the most part cut off from one another by roads, ski-ing resorts and other man-made obstacles. Smaller than the American grizzly (Ursus arctos horribilis), Pyrenean bears are nonetheless imposing. Newborn cubs weighing 350 grams become adults of 200-300 kg, and all that on a diet that is nine-tenths vegetarian. The French Alps have been bearless since the 19405. Spain’s 60-odd Cantabrian bears are doing well, but are too few to be encouraged to migrate to the

Pyrenees. Italy’s numbers are on the decline. In contrast, communist Europe has treated its bears with respect. Czechoslovakia had only 15-20 bears in 19305, but now has nearly 600. In Russia the animal is thriving. Europe’s bears all belong to the same branch of the Ursus arctos family. So French and Spanish officials are thinking of importing 40 or 50 European bears to help repopulate, the Pyrenees, which was home to 150-200 bears as recently as 1937. A team of Soviet naturalists visited the region in July and decided that the climate and

vegetation would suit bears from the Caucasus. France’s Environment Minister is preparing to launch an ursine repopulation plan early next year. His officials in the Midi are working to ensure that the newcomers settle down happily and, ideally, mate with their Pyrenean comrades. This means providing more room for them to roam — roughly five times the area of existing nature reserves. Fortunately, the region’s dominant species, Homo pirenaeus, is coming round to the idea of co-existence with an animal that centuries of folklore have taught him to fear. In the nineteenth century a hunter who killed a bear earned roughly what a teacher earned in five months — in rewards from grateful shepherds and payment for the meat, pelt and even the fat, which barbers sold as a cure for baldness. Bear hunting, was banned in France in 1962 and in Spain in 1975. On both sides of the Pyrenees, generous compensation has persuaded shepherds that bears, too, have a right to taste their excellent lamb. Copyright — The Economist