About 170 sheep fell into the void and died

About 170 sheep have died in mountain pastures in southwestern France after they were thrown into the void, with ranchers pointing to a bear’s responsibility, but plantigrade defenders stressing a lack of evidence.

“No doubt, 168 sheep threw themselves into the void, there must be something behind them that pushed them,” the president of the department’s pastoral federation told AFP on Tuesday. Ariège, Alain Servat.

“We didn’t know the rocks before the existence of the bear”, he assured.

For him, the only solution was for the French state to “decide today that ‘coexistence (with the bear) is no longer possible'”.

“How many more tragedies before we are presented with real solutions?” The Association for the Protection of the Heritage of the Aries-Pyrenees (ASPAP) lamented on its Facebook page, posting photos of dozens of dead sheep.

The same outrage was directed at the president of the Aries department, home to most of the bears in the Pyrenees.

“I’m angry because the daily work of our growers is being undermined by a state that is deaf to calls for help,” Christine Tekwi wrote on her Facebook page.

The day after Sunday’s dig, teams from the French Biodiversity Office made on-site observations.

“In most of the excavations, for 20 years, the results show that there are no signs of bear hunting”, confirmed Alain Raynes, director of the association Pays de l’Ars-Adet for his part.

“A herd, a dog, a pig, a storm can be brought down to anything… but only if it is a bear, or if we make it seem like it is a bear, then compensation is given (…) even when it is not. Hints of predation”, he adds, lamenting the “perversion of the system”.

Many breeders, hunters and local elected officials oppose the bear’s presence in the Pyrenees, supported by the state and communities for biodiversity protection.

Although the plantigrade has practically disappeared from this mountain range, a reintroduction program of brown bears from Slovenia was initiated in the 1990s.

Today, according to French authorities, they number about 70, especially in the middle of the Pyrenees, in Ariz on the French side, and in the Val d’Arron on the Spanish side.