Illustration of a brown bear. – Rain carnation
The plantigrade which prowls and licks its lips in the Louron valley, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, already has too long a record. The prefecture confirms this Wednesday that the attack on a sheepfold last Friday in the village of Lançon, but also two other “predations” observed since April 19, are indeed the act of a bear. From the same animal in addition, which has therefore just won the label “problem bear” and will be entitled, from tonight, to the protocol that goes with it.
To remedy behavior deemed “abnormal”, the prefect, Rodrigue Furcy, has in fact just authorized “aversive conditioning measures by agents of the French Biodiversity Office”. “It consists of firing plastic bullets at a short distance to hit the animal’s hindquarters and exploding double-detonation cartridges near the animal, during its flight”, specifies the prefecture in a report. communicated.
A controversial measure
This reinforced scaring measure was requested by the breeders of the massif. But it will not fail to ruffle the hair of pro-bear associations. They had already seized the administrative justice on this experimental practice, especially used in Ariège. And, on April 4, the Council of State had deemed illegal the reinforced scarings already implemented. Hence probably this new terminology of “aversive conditioning”.
Shepherds of the Louron valley think that the bear who is going to get warm in the buttocks is the turbulent Goiat, already the holder of a beautiful hunting picture on both sides of the Pyrenees. But the prefecture does not disclose whether it is he who is redoing his own.