Bears: the ultimate rewilding success

Ecologist Pádraic Fogarty looks at how the reintroduction of brown bears to France has worked out so far

Brown bear of the Pyrenees. Picture: Office français de la biodiversité

Given how domesticated our landscapes have become it’s incredible to think that our nearest EU neighbour, France, has brown bears. Bears were once widespread across Europe, including throughout Ireland, but the conversion of natural habitats to farmland and cities gradually pushed them into the most remote mountainous regions, where tracts of dense forest survived alongside pastoral farming that had adapted to live alongside big predators. However, even in these places persecution programmes in the 19th and 20th centuries nearly wiped them out completely. It’s astonishing that small populations managed to survive at all, including one in the Pyrenees.

Brown bear and its two cubs. Photo credit: OFB Equipe Ours / Réseau Ours Brun