Video: Family of Pyrenean bears emerges from hibernation in time for spring
The Local France - [email protected]
Published: 20 Apr, 2018 CET.
Updated: Fri 20 Apr 2018 16:07 CET
A family of brown bears has been caught on camera in the Pyrenees in a video which shows them scratching their backs on a tree trunk and climbing in the mountains.
Birds and lambs might be what comes to mind when you think of spring.
But in the Pyrenees mountains in southern France, a family of brown bears has been spotted apparently emerging from hibernation as the temperatures start to rise.
A video published by Catalan bear protection group Piros Life shows a mother bear and two cubs at the Alt Pirineau natural park, close to the border between France and Spain.
Captured both during the day and at night-time, the bears are seen scratching their backs on the tree trunk as well as climbing up it.
In a blog post, Piros Life said: "With rising temperatures, usually around March, the first evidence of movements of those animals begin to be observed. The first to leave the cave are adult males, followed by adult females. Finally, the females leave with puppies."
Pyrenean bears are a sensitive subject in France, as farmers complain they attack their livestock. Last July, around 200 sheep fell to their deaths in the Spanish Pyrenees, apparently frightened by a bear.
Bears were reintroduced into the Pyrenees from Slovenia in the 1990s, after hunting forced them to the brink of extinction.
In March, a judge in Toulouse, southern France, ordered the French state to pay €8,750 to two bear protection charities for failing to do enough to protect bears in the Pyrenees.
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Birds and lambs might be what comes to mind when you think of spring.
But in the Pyrenees mountains in southern France, a family of brown bears has been spotted apparently emerging from hibernation as the temperatures start to rise.
A video published by Catalan bear protection group Piros Life shows a mother bear and two cubs at the Alt Pirineau natural park, close to the border between France and Spain.
Captured both during the day and at night-time, the bears are seen scratching their backs on the tree trunk as well as climbing up it.
In a blog post, Piros Life said: "With rising temperatures, usually around March, the first evidence of movements of those animals begin to be observed. The first to leave the cave are adult males, followed by adult females. Finally, the females leave with puppies."
Pyrenean bears are a sensitive subject in France, as farmers complain they attack their livestock. Last July, around 200 sheep fell to their deaths in the Spanish Pyrenees, apparently frightened by a bear.
Bears were reintroduced into the Pyrenees from Slovenia in the 1990s, after hunting forced them to the brink of extinction.
In March, a judge in Toulouse, southern France, ordered the French state to pay €8,750 to two bear protection charities for failing to do enough to protect bears in the Pyrenees.
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