Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear

Subject: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 05:16 AM

Hunters have shot dead the last female brown bear native to the Pyrenees, condemning the species to extinction and causing an "environmental catastrophe" for France, the government said.
Animal protection groups were last night concerned for the survival of the bear's 10-month-old orphaned cub which escaped unharmed, but which was barely weaned.

His mother, affectionately known by game wardens as Cannelle (Cinnamon), was killed on Monday when a group of boar-hunters shot her in what they claim was self-defence.

President Jacques Chirac said: "The disappearance of a species is always a serious loss for biodiversity." The environment minister, Serge Lepeltier, was to visit the site of the killing last night to launch an investigation into how the six experienced hunters had been allowed to organise a wild boar shoot in the area where the bear was living.

"It is an ecological catastrophe because this was the last female bear of the Pyrenean line," he said.

Hunting was banned in the region yesterday and walkers have been stopped from going there with dogs so the cub is not further disturbed. The 15-year-old bear attacked the hunters' dogs out of fright. One hunter fired into the air to scare her away, but another member of the shoot fired on Cannelle from less than five metres to protect himself.

Bernard Placé, president of the departmental hunting federation, said: "He shot in self-defence."

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 05:25 AM

QUOTE :- Its a nice day , lets go out and Shoot something!!

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 05:47 AM

MORONS!

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 05:52 AM

It was no accident, they wanted to eat it!

How many Frenchmen does it take to change a lightbulb?

21

1 to change it and 20 to write recipes how to cook the dead one...

:D

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: DMcG
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 06:05 AM

Morons, yes, but for hunting where they did. Once the bear decided to defend her cub, they probably didn't have much choice. If you have a gun in your hand and an angry full grown bear is five metres away and probably approaching rapidly, your options are limited.

So did the hunters know the bears were in the area, and indeed that they had cubs and so potentially very dangerous? If so, they were morons indeed, but I'd be surprised if they faced more than a nominal fine. I agree with the article that the real negligence lay in their being "allowed to organise a wild boar shoot in the area where the bear was living."

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 07:08 AM

It is a bloody disaster. Hunting animals for "sport" is caveman style bollocks.

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 07:13 AM

Are there none in captivity that can be used as breeding stock for a release programme?

Surely this can't be the very last ever bear...? if it is, then we really need to work harder at conservation and preservation. And a revision of the hunting laws and zoning in areas where endangered species are breeding.

LTS

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 11:32 AM

DMcG I agree with you 100%, I made the samepoint some hours ago in thread "Emotions & the cat".



Regards Skipy

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 02:04 PM

lord, what fools these mortals be...

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Nerd
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 03:52 PM

If this really was the last female of the species then the species was moribund in any case. All future cubs would be siblings, all of their cubs would be cousins to one another through both the male and female lines, and the entire line would be inbred and probably not viable. So the REAL crime lay in allowing the species to become so endangered in the first place.

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Mudlark
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 04:20 PM

My thot too, Nerd. I hope there is still breeding stock somewhere...but the world is getting smaller every day, more crowded, more untenable for larger mammals.

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 08:00 PM

The threat to animals isn't from hunting, but from habitat loss. In this case, I too must ask why the hell they were allowed to hunt in the area? What caused the decline in the bear population to that point, and yes, if the bear that was killed was indeed the "last of the species" (apart from the cub) the species was already extinct.

But that aside -- is/was the Pyrerean Brown Bear a species distinct from all other Brown Bears? Or could the bears be reintroduced from another place? And...are they certain? If so, how do they (the experts) know for sure that this was the very last?

Finally, for those of you criticising the hunters -- if you were attacked by a bear, an animal which outweighed you, could easily outrun you, and was angry because you were "bothering" her cub, what would you do? And don't think that this is a rhetorical question, because if you went hiking in hills where I live you could be faced with moose, black bear, and cougar. (I have my answer, and no, it doesn't involved killing the animal. I may hunt, but....)

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: skipy
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 08:14 PM

This is not about hunting, it is about the system allowing hunters into an area where such a rare beast may do what her instinct's tell her to do & put her at risk or in this case her species at risk.
However her species was already heading for the history books by the sound of it and that was OUR fault, that was MY fault & YOUR fault. I Live in the U/K & I had not even heard of the species until today (please note I was a zoo keeper for three years (add that to the facts thread))So the system is to blame-we are the bloody system!

Skipy

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: open mike
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 11:48 PM

hey where's my post?
earlier i asked where is the pappa bear?
there must be one somewhere...
maybe goldilocks knows?

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Ooh-Aah2
Date: 05 Nov 04 - 02:51 AM

Shit. MORE bad news. I really think humans are a waste of time at moments like this. Hunter should have their balls shot off to prevent them breeding.

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 Nov 04 - 05:06 AM

Can we just shoot their balls off anyway? I'd volunteer to do it.....

if I can keep them as trophies on my 'den' wall afterwards... make earrings out of them.... use them as paperweights.... ends for curtain poles.....

Here's a new thread waiting to happen 101 uses for a detatched testicle.

No. 4. Elect it president.

LTS

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Raedwulf
Date: 05 Nov 04 - 06:09 PM

Clarification:

Original BBC report

Key quotes are (if you don't want to read the full article):

"The organisers of this wild boar hunt knew perfectly well that Cannelle and her offspring of this year were in the area when they went to indulge their pleasure."

"The hunters had been warned there was a bear in the area," he said. "There should not have been any shoot."

"The anger of environmentalists is all the greater because Cannelle was the last female bear in the region of pure Pyrenean stock. While two other males are indigenous, the remainder are bears imported from Slovenia. Only three or four breeding females now remain in the whole mountain range."

"Attempts to increase the number of bears - a protected species - by bringing in animals from other areas of Europe have been opposed by cattle and sheep farmers. Many are also local hunters."

Now, it may just be that I'm a cynical bastard, but given the last quote, I can't help wondering about this alleged 'self-defense'...

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Tansy
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 05:57 AM

sooo stupid. Pennsylvania Fish & Game agents have managed to train their Human Population in The Poconos to co-exist peacefully with Black bears, so what's up with the French? I mean, if sweet retired couples from New York city who bought up the wilderness in the Poconos for Mountain retreats there can learn not to feed the bears, not to shoot the bears and not to run them over...why can't they? Sooooo stupid.

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 07:27 PM

If hunters in Idaho can co-exist with black bears (and yes, there is a very controlled hunt), moutain lions (ditto), and are lobbying for a reintroduction of grizzlies (don't even THINK of shooting one of the few in the state!), what the hell's wrong with the French?

If the "hunting" party knew that the bear was in the area they have no bloody excuse! As someone who hunts, or rather, has hunted in the past and hopes to someday do so again*, I think that they should be used to feed the remaining bears....






*Erin, my vegetarian friend: "Mike's okay, he never shoots anything."

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: GUEST,Math
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 04:04 PM

Tragic. What's even more distressing is how few column inches are given to this story and how quickly the media spotlight passes on.

As a regular newspaper reader (but admittedly casual environmentalist) I stumbled on this story and like Skipy it was the first i really knew of the Pyrenean Brown Bear.

What of the cub? Being wildly optimistic and assuming it's a female could the species by reintroduced with the help of Slovenian bears? And if Cannelle was the only native female does that mean there are still females but only of none native origin (presumably Slovenian) or are there just males? And if so, why were only male bears introduced leaving the species in such a precarious situation?

Sadly I imagine there will be no follow up stories in british broadsheet press. I'll be scouring the web for news..

P.s. The Self-defence line is shameless.

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 10:10 AM

Not sure how reliable this is, but in June 1984 I spent about 2 weeks or so on holiday with several friends in the Pyrenees. On the French side we got talking to a Frenchman who told us that there were actually bears in one of the dense forests to the north of the Pyrenees, in more lowland areas (it was another member of the holiday party, not me, who talked to the man, and I am only going from memory on what he told me). I can't remember exactly where it was, though I know after meeting one of the holiday party in Pau (not too far from Lourdes) we sent to several places such as Gavarnbie, the Cirque de Tromouse, St. Jean-Peid de Ports, etc. Whether this information was reliable, or what the situation is now I don't know.

Whether or not the shooting was in self-defense (and I suspect most of us in this alleged situation would take no chances) the main problem is that the bear population had got too low anyway to be viable. I think there might still be bears in Italy.

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:32 AM

Nerd and Rapaire have already said most of what I would have contributed. Visit the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and run a search on "Species Survival" to learn more about the work they have done around the world.

Any animal population, that gets so low as this one and is so stressed by loss of habitat, is doomed to an existence in captivity to assuage the human feelings of guilt over losing the rest of the population. Animals become artifacts, and still too many people don't seem to make the lost habitat connection. It's a Catch-22 for those who feel bad about keeping animals in captivity at all.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 02:27 PM

DNA cloning suddenly sounds like a good idea. Hope they haven't burned the corpse.

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 07:36 PM

It's France, they've probably eaten it with a nice Cote du Rhone.

LTS

Subject: RE: Obit: Pyrenean Brown Bear
From: Tam the Bam (Nutter)
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 03:18 PM

I'm not a great animal lover, but these 'humans' that go and hunt innocent wee/big animals are just bastards, and I agree just shoot the baastards.
And then they claim it as 'sport'. where is the 'sport' in hunting a animal with a gun/dog. ie fox hunting, these people are perverts (Fox Hunters). if the animal is killed and then eating that ok I suppose but to kill an animal because you want to is just cruel.
Anyway Fishermen catch fish and then throw them back into the water so they don't really kill it.

BASTARDS 'merde'