France is to release two female bears into the Pyrenees, the first in a decade, placing the government on collision course with farmers who complain that the beasts pose a threat to their livestock.
Sheep rearers have previously taken the law into their own hands, targeting the bears with various traps, including one containing honey laced with glass.
Nicolas Hulot, President Emmanuel Macron’s star environment minister and a former wildlife TV presenter, said he was prepared to face farmers’ wrath otherwise the population could die out as only two lonesome males – father and son – are left in the area.
“I don’t want to be the minister who stood by while this line (of bears) died out,” Mr Hulot told Le Parisien, adding that wanted the animals to be reintroduced this autumn.
Mr Hulot said: “I decided to go on the offensive because there are only two males left in (the Pyrénées-occidentales) département, including Cannellito, son of Cannelle”, the last surviving indigenous Pyrenean female illegally killed by a hunter in 2004.
France will consult with several European countries before picking the females.
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Bears were re-introduced from Slovenia in the 1990s after hunters all but wiped out France’s native population.
The last time was in 2006, when five were freed near the Spanish border, but the lovelorn males, Canellito and Néré, are the only ones left in the western Pyrenees.
Another 37 have been counted in the central section of the mountain range along the Spanish border. But conservationists say the two isolated males are unlikely to reach the group and would have to fight dominant males before being able to mate with the females.
The reintroduction of the creatures, which can weigh 250kg (almost 40 stone) and stand two metres tall on their hind legs, has been a divisive and impassioned issue for more than 20 years.
Farmers’ ire reached such levels last year that they allegedly fired warning shots over the heads of government experts sent to assess how many sheep the predators had killed.
The quarrel mirrors a similar dispute over wolves, which have returned to France from Italy after being hunted to extinction by the early 20th century.
A poll this week showed that 84 per cent of the French favour the bears, although they were blamed for the deaths of about 450 sheep who tumbled off cliffs while being chased by bears last summer.
One local group issued a video in September showing about 30 masked men brandishing rifles and threatening to hunt bears in defiance of the law.
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Mr Hulot said: “I know it’s a sensitive subject but I want to work with (the farmers)… I understand their fears.”
He added: “We can’t preach to countries with big emblematic wild animals threatened with extinction if we falter in protecting species under threat in France.”
The minister called for dialogue resulting in better protection for bears and livestock.
Pascal Canffin, head of WWF France, hailed the announcement, which he said had been “awaited for several years” and was “coherent both in view of his recent calls to save biodiversity and the will of the French people.”