Networking in the Pyrenees

Project team from Italy and Slovenia just spent a very
informative and fruitful week in the Pyrenees, learning about brown bear
population status in France and Spain, and about their efforts in saving a
small, reinforced population, which is however, experiencing an increasing
population trend.

Our French and Spanish colleagues kindly hosted us
with very rich programme and their expertise, which enabled us to get familiar
with their conservation efforts, management and research methods, and measures
for improving coexistence of rural people and bears on the same space.

French and Spanish population of brown bear
experienced near extinction before it was reinforced by several translocations
of individuals from Slovenia. The series of translocations for population
reinforcement began more than 20 years ago, in 1996, and the last translocation
was executed just last October – in 2018 – by bringing two females in an area,
where only two males remained roaming alone. Both females are doing fine and
seem to integrate very well into the new environment, expressing quite
different spatial use, activity and movement patterns.

The challenges their conservation and management
authorities have had to face over this period include small population size, isolated
nuclei of individuals, non-favourable public attitudes and beliefs about bears
that are not based on biological facts, public perceptions that are not formed
on scientific facts, low acceptance by rural people, bear-caused damages on
livestock, awareness raising, and other.

The Bear Team from the French National Hunting and Wildlife Agency “Office National de la Chasse et de la Fauna Sauvage”, Agency’s technical unit from Regional directions (Toulouse in this case), Spanish team of the LIFE Piros project, Generalitat de Catalunya and Conselh Generau d’Aran welcomed us in their headquarters and on the field.

They presented and demonstrated on the field their
management and monitoring systems, compensation payment systems, protection measures
against bear depredations on domestic livestock, conservation efforts, research
results and future objectives, and field methodology of data collection. They also
presented us their protocols for conservation actions, emergency and
intervention protocols, and aerial protocols for air-borne monitoring actions.

We have learnt about the system of French and Spanish
authorities and agencies that deal with conservation questions, wildlife and
forest management, research, and hunting. We have also met representatives of
the Pyrenean Pastoral Association. Their professional shepherds offer an
important support for shepherds in the Pyrenees, also in emergency situations,
and carry out obligatory trainings for shepherds. We have learnt about how they
use livestock guardian dogs as a protection measure, about the breeding,
selection and training procedures of these working dogs. The Association is
also in charge of supervising these dogs and offering advice on their training
and appropriate raising.

On a one-day field excursion into bear core area, we
admired the Pyrenean landscape and its fauna and flora. We climbed some ridges
(average altitude 1.500 m), visited mountainous pastures, where transhumance is
being performed nowadays, and learnt about their monitoring and research
methods.

We are very grateful to our French and Spanish
colleagues for their hospitality and huge amount of information exchanged and
we are looking forward to return the favour in our Dinaric-Alpine environment.