Contrary to will Italy and Spain, France miss its go with the bear? The arrival envisaged of five unhappy plantigrades causes a violent hostility, minority but effective since it already caused a suspension of the reintroductions in waiting of a Council Decision of State. Seized by associations of stockbreeders and farmers, who claim the program stop of repopulation, the high authority meets this Saturday morning on the subject. Is it necessary to privilege the future of a profession to the barks or a biodiversity put at evil? The mishaps of the bear in France do not go back to yesterday but, today, one does not give expensive any more of his skin.

Honey. The reception is not sympathetic nerve: ends of glass in honey with Bagnères-of-Bigorre (Hautes-Pyrénées), close to the place where one of the bears was slackened last on April 28, of the tags on a war memorial, letters more or less menaçantes addressed to the elected officials… These anonymous acts, which increased the tension, are to be dissociated from the actions asserted by the militants antiours, primarily from associations of stockbreeders or farmers who, them, act at the great day: in the communes chosen to accomodate the bears, they supervise night and day the vehicles likely to transport plantigrades. The operation to slacken, which could have been one moment of glory for Nelly Olin, the Minister for Ecology, turns to the fiasco. Only two females out of the five envisaged arrived to France, while playing hide-and-seek with the antiours. Friday, the minister was anxious, because, even if the Council of State authorizes it to continue, “it is out of question of endangering the animals”.

The bear however sows the discord since decades. As of the Fifties, the defenders of this “inheritance” and the enemies of this “noxious animal” were opposed. One spoke about protection, but manpower continued to melt: 200 at the beginning of the century, a hundred in 1960 compared with a score in 1980 and one fortnight today. One drove out the bears for money: the skin, grease and the meat were sold at handsome price. Until 1962, to kill a bear was not illegal. In 1983, the authorities consider a bear plan with “reinforcement of the population”. In 1988, one leads to a directive. But it should be waited until 1993 so that Michel Barnier, Minister for the Environment, sign a convention of reintroduction with mayors of the Pyrenees. Communes favorable to the bear, gather in an association for the economic and tourist development (Adet). The mayor of Melles dreams of a park: “Heavy took off thanks to the Virgin; we, we will have the bear”, declares it at the time. But nobody expresses against the Virgin. And the bear, which did not make a miracle, is always made kill: in 1994, eight people suspected of having cut down one are placed of them in police custody in Pau.

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According to American studies', carried out starting from the grizzlis of Yellowstone, a population of plantigrades is hardly viable to less than one about fifty individuals.