Wild bear angers farmers after killing 8 Spanish sheep

FRENCH and Spanish authorities convened yesterday to determine the fate of a sheep-killing bear after furious farmers threatened to take the law into their own hands.

The bear, Claverina, was one of two brown bears airlifted into the French Pyrenees from Slovenia in order to repopulate the region last October, but has since killed eight sheep in Spain.

Bears are known for their capacity to travel great distances, and Claverina has spent more time in Spain than in France, attacking and killing the sheep in Navarre, northern Spain, prompting anger from local farmers.

“We are not going to allow farmers and livestock to face danger from wild species introduced in the area without taking our views into account,” the Navarre Union of Farmers and Livestock Rearers said in a statement last week.

At the meeting between French, Spanish and regional authorities held in Spain’s environment ministry, Navarre’s authority was expected to ask for access to geolocation information to follow the bears’ movements.

The local environmental authority is also helping farmers by attaching GPS devices to flocks of sheep, so farmers can be alerted to sudden movements that may indicate the presence of a predatory bear.

Spain’s environment ministry said the parties had agreed to “speed up the exchange of information regarding the tracking of individual bears that move between the Spanish and French Pyrenees”, as well as boosting preventive measures to protect flocks.