At last count, at the end of 2022, there were officially 76 bears in the Pyrenees. But between the female photographed on July 7 in Auzat, in Ariège, and the two bears seen with their offspring, strangely close to each other, at the beginning of summer in this same department near Ustou, the The team of technicians from the Brown Bear Network (ROB) ensures that the young generation can frolic on the slopes of the massif.
“Late rut”
“Subject to confirmation by genetics, these observations, supplemented by samples of droppings collected during (…) reports of damage to domestic livestock, should make it possible to add two to three additional litters to the five already detected in the spring in the French Pyrenees,” indicate the specialists in the latest edition of their Echo of the Lairsposted online Monday.
Beyond the cubs of the year, the agents of the French Biodiversity Office (OFB) also noted on August 24 in Couflens, still in Ariège, “late rutting behavior”, rather unusual, and “perhaps linked to infanticide or the first reproduction of a young bear”. Genetics and exits from hibernation next spring will tell if these late love affairs were fertile.