The survival of the Pyrenean bear will be given a boost by the introduction of some Slovenian bears to the region, but the move has polarised French opinion, writes Alva MacSherry
The Pyrenean bear, officially extinct after a hunter killed the last female in November, is making a comeback amid venomous debate. In the high Pyrenees, the snow is melting rapidly. Suddenly the sun is hot and strong. In a few weeks the glare of white will be replaced by an astonishing and exciting variety of plants and animals, all rushing to bloom and reproduce in the short Pyrenean season.
The rising temperature and the excited call of the circling ravens have tempted Chocolat and Pyren out of hibernation. Scrawny, hungry and befuddled after months without eating, the two male bears look every bit the tattered last remnants of a fading species.
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the department of Haut Bearne - somewhere very secret - a cub with no name is waking up, too. His first hibernation has been spent without the bulk of a mother to warm and comfort him, but that is not to say that nobody cares for him. Little Cub X is for many the symbol in the battle to keep the bears in the Pyrenees.
The survival of the brown bear in the Pyrenees is a subject that has taken on new heat in recent weeks, since the French environment minister, Serge Lepeltier, announced that the government will release five Slovenian bears into the mountains this year, and will double the total number of bears in the Pyrenees in three years. This will ensure the survival of the species for at least 50 years. For many of the shepherds and small communities in the Pyrenees, this is very bad news. They say bears prey on their sheep and that the government is simply pandering for electoral gain to city dwellers who want to tell mountain folk how to run their business. To the independent and suspicious Pyreneans, an edict from Paris that introduces a predator at the top of the food chain is simply too much.
Today, there remain a reported 14 brown bears (there are probably only 10) roaming the wide ranges of the Pyrenees, from the Mediterranean on one side to the Atlantic on the other. Two elderly males live in Spain, but they are too old now to reproduce.
On the French side, things are not much better. The population was boosted in the 1990s when two females and a male were introduced from Slovenia, but the last of the native female brown bears, Cannelle, was killed by a hunter tracking boar on November 1st last year (ostensibly in self-defence after she bit the hunter's fox terrier). She had with her a cub, a male. He was just 10 months old - not even half grown.
Since then Cub X, this little precious reservoir of Pyrenean-bear genes has been one of the most closely watched wild animals in the world. He has been constantly followed by a team of monitors who track his trail through footprints, spoor and fur on branches, always keeping their distance.
The team left food for him - there are well-founded fears that Cub X will not survive - but he spurned human help, sticking to high ground, a sign that a bear is doing well.
On December 24th, he retired to a den and his team of trailing nannies could step back for a couple of months. But now he's awake again, and vulnerable. Losses among bear-cubs in the first two years amount to 40 to 50 per cent. Other bears, wild dogs, bad weather, treacherous ground and, indeed, hunters are all a genuine threat to little Cub X.
The argument against boosting bear numbers is more than simply passionate. It is always heated and at times venomous: it has been common to see children at "anti-bear" rallies holding signs declaring: "Let's Kill The Bears", and a shepherd who spoke in favour of accepting the reintroduction of bears has been threatened.
Although intimidating - they weigh in at 200kg, three times the weight of the average man - the bears are in fact extremely shy, and rarely seen.
They are largely vegetarian, taking just 7 per cent of their diet from meat.
They do kill sheep, nobody is denying that: the deaths of cows (who run away in panic) and horses (two from running over a cliff) are also blamed on bears. The government recompenses people who lose animals, and the state was called upon to reimburse the loss of 30 ewes out of the 50,000 who spent the summer in high pastures last year.
But it will come as no surprise that there is more at stake. For the mountain communities, the fears are also for their land and their economies.
Pyrenean farmers largely practise transhumance - a farming method whereby sheep are moved to high pastures, the estives, in the summer.
The high pastures are owned by the communes, the smallest subdivision of the French state. They rent them out to farmers. A large proportion of the commune's income comes from this, and were it to be cut off because farmers no longer wanted to send animals to the high pasture for fear of bears, local taxes would rocket, the shepherds would lose their work and the ungrazed land would become a wilderness.
Two of the five bears to be released this year will be released in the Ariège. A department with a long association of bears - bear-tamers from the Ariège valleys of Alet and Garbet travelled the world with dancing Pyrenean bears until the end of the last century - it is also home to some of the most independent-minded of Pyrenean agriculturalists.
The farmers of the Ariège are particularly vocal in their opposition to the bears, an objection bolstered by the first bear sighting of the year - Bouxty, one of the "Slovenian" cubs, just out of hibernation and sauntering across the main road in full view of waiting traffic, outside the large town of Ax-les-Thermes in the Ariège.
But the French government is unmoved. Much as there was a national outcry at the killing of Cannelle (the 67-year-old hunter ended up in hospital with depression after widespread vilification), there is widespread joy at the survival of her cub. An internet petition for the reintroduction of the bears to the Pyrenees has garnered 100,000 signatures to date.
Even in Ariège, a telephone survey of 300 people recently found 74 per cent in favour of maintaining the bear population in the Pyrenees (even the "no" lobby doesn't suggest killing off the remaining bears) and 64 per cent in favour of introducing extra bears.
Forced to choose between an overwhelmingly popular and fully-funded ecological project and a few angry communities who will undoubtedly learn to live with a few more bears, the minister made the politically obvious decision. But the number of bears to be introduced is surprisingly high, and the timetable for the introduction (five Slovenian female bears this autumn, five more next year) is considered arbitrary. After endless debate, there had been hopes for mutual agreement between the sides, but the minister's move has simply polarised opinion further.
And amid all this, what do the Slovenians think? As schoolgirl Alja Elsner noted in 1997: "At the end of last June we sold our bear Mellba to France. They killed Mellba on September 27th. I think we shouldn't sell our bears to the French anymore if they can't keep them alive. And besides, the Pyrenees are not so suitable for bears to live in. Our forests are much better. So my opinion is that we shouldn't give another bear to French people except if they improve themselves and become more organised."
M. le Ministre, please note.
For hundreds of years, the Pyrenean mountain dog has guarded flocks of sheep from bears, wolves, lynx and wild dogs. Now, with bear-inspired EU funding for the purchase and raising of pups as working dogs in high pastures, it is making a return to its homeland.
The dog's attachment to its flock is legendary, and is achieved by penning the pup with the sheep from the age of seven or eight weeks and limiting contact with humans, particularly children. Play is discouraged as it brings out the dog's natural hunting instincts. The pup may be allowed out with the flock from the age of four months, but is not particularly useful until the age of about 18 months.
A young, inexperienced dog can usefully protect a few dozen hectares but an experienced adult dog can cover several hundred hectares and several hundred sheep.
The dogs are not usually trained as such, unless it is to discourage behaviour such as jumping fences. They instinctively range around the territory of the flock, heading off predators before they get near the flock.
Their very presence - their marking of their territory, their barking and their powerful physical presence - is enough to dissuade most attackers.
Against a bear, the dog hassles the beast, obliging it to defend itself and thus preventing it attacking the sheep.