The bear first appears alone in the world on its rocky slope. Until three balls of fur, emerging from the bushes, began frolicking, happily and clumsily, after him. These unpublished images and “extraordinary”, taken with a telephoto lens, of a family of plantigrades in the Pyrenees were revealed on May 19 on Facebook and Instagram by the Hope* France collective which works for the preservation of wildlife.
Activists do not reveal where exactly this rare and fragile litter of three cubs “lives”.
Because according to the collective, this is only the twelfth litter of “triplets”, out of the 90 recorded since 1995 in the massif. “To date, out of these 12 litters of 3 cubs, or only 36 bears, 18 bears (counting this year’s cubs) are still alive and 18 bears have unfortunately died, including 11 during their first year of life,” explains Hope France. .
The danger of males in heat
As the rutting season begins, the happy mother bear will have to, in addition to raising her cubs, protect them against males who want to mate with her. And who will not hesitate to attack the cubs to free her from her mental load and somehow make her more available.
According to the latest report from the Brown Bear Network, published in April, some 83 bears were recorded in 2023 in the Pyrenees, including sixteen cubs. The ursine population continues to grow in the massif but associations are warning of a lack of genetic diversity and are still calling for the replacement of the three animals that died due to human action in recent years.
* For “Pyrenees bear man hope”