The Awkward Return of the Brown Bear

France, Spain and Andorra are working to reintroduce the brown bear in the Pyrenees Mountains. Fearful residents oppose the effort.

PARIS - Many residents of the Pyrenees, especially shepherds, are afraid of a hungry giant that stands more than two meters tall, weighs up to 200 kilograms, multiplies rapidly and doesn't respect international borders.

The giant is the brown bear (Ursus arctos), or Slovenian bear, which until recently was thought to be practically extinct in many European countries, but is now being reintroduced in the mountains of the French-Spanish border.

Some 15 bears will be released in the Pyrenees over the next few years, according to an agreement signed by France, Spain and Andorra on May 22.

But already by the end of April, three Slovenian bears had been released in the region by order of the French government, which prompted loud protests from shepherds and other residents of the Pyrenees, and even from environmentalists, who see the proliferation of the large mammal as a greater threat to economic and recreational activities in the area.

With signs reading "Bears on the loose, Man in danger", some 200 farmers participated on May 23 in one of the recent marches against the species reintroduction in the northern Spanish city of Huesca.

Although several male bears live in the French mountainous regions, the species was in danger of disappearing due to the lack of females. The last recorded female in the French Pyrenees, known as Canela, was killed in November 2004 by a local shepherd, a hunter in his free time, who considered the bear a threat to his flocks.

The loss of Canela prompted the French government to import several females from Slovenia and release them in the mountains on the Spanish border in order to stimulate the species' reproduction.

The brown bear, say detractors, does not only attack sheep and poultry. Although, according to legend, the bear feeds on honey and plants, it does not ignore the temptation of meat, and can devour a sheep in a flash. And although bears usually avoid contact with humans, under certain circumstances it can become very aggressive.

The critics of the reintroduction plan also point out that the brown bear is not in danger of extinction, because there are some 200,000 living around the world today, especially in North America and Russia, but also in the Balkan nations.

But ecologists say the survival of this large bear species in additional habitat ensures environmental balance. In the opinion of Farid Banhammou, geographer and expert on predators, the long-term presence of the Ursus arctos in the Pyrenees would demonstrate the health of the area's ecosystem.

"The conflicts blamed on the brown bear originate from the modern multiple use of the mountain by shepherds, hunters and hikers, which have transformed it into an artificially wild landscape. The presence of the brown bear in the Pyrenees obligates us to see the mountain from the perspective of coexistence amongst different species and humans," Benhammou told Tierramérica in an interview.

Opposition to the resettlement of the bear, says the expert, is based on economic arguments that have no real relation with its coexistence with livestock.

"French agriculture is in crisis," commented Benhammou. "In the Pyrenees there are some 600,000 sheep, of which 300,000 live in regions where the brown bear also lives. Of those sheep, just 200 to 400 die each year in bear attacks. Meanwhile, as many as 20,000 sheep die from diseases." But these arguments fail to convince the shepherds.

"Analyzing the numbers of sheep and goats killed by bears in general terms is absurd. The bear always attacks the same flocks. If mine is 500 sheep and the bear kills 30 each year, I have a huge economic problem," said Vincent Gleizes, a shepherd in the eastern French Pyrenees.

"If I see a brown bear near my flocks, I'll kill it," Gleizes told Tierramérica. In 1997, a French hunter killed Mellba, a Slovenian bear that had been released in the Pyrenees the year before.

Earlier this month, the authorities in the southern German state of Bavaria allowed the killing of a brown bear that had migrated from the southwest Austrian region of Tyrol. According to the Bavarian minister of environment, the bear had gone mad, attacking several beehives and poultry farms.

That brown bear was the first to settle in Germany since the last sighting of the species in that country in 1835. Although this is not normally a motive for satisfaction amongst defenders of biodiversity, the reality today is different.

As the Austrian journalist Doris Knecht noted with irony, "the initial pride of being able to show a brown bear to tourists was immediately replaced by the fear that the tourists would lose their lives in the adventure."

* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent.