Brown bear’s fate could be worse
still after he riles farmers with attacks on livestock
Sam Jones in
Madrid
Sun 22 Jul
2018 12.27 BSTLast modified on Mon 23 Jul 2018 00.50 BST
After two years of roaming and a
string of attacks on horses, sheep and goats, Goiat the brown bear could soon
find himself declared ursus non gratus in the Pyrenees. Or worse.
Goiat, who is thought to be
between 12 and 14 years old, was brought to Catalonia from his native Slovenia
in June 2016 as part of an
EU project to consolidate the bear population in the
mountains that straddle Spain and France.
Conservation and
repopulation efforts over the past two decades have been a success, with the
number of animals in the central Pyrenees rising from three in 1996 to 43
today.
But Goiat’s depredations, and
particularly his unusual attacks on horses, have angered farmers in the
north-western Catalan areas of Pallars Sobirà and Val d’Aran and prompted calls
for him to be removed from the region.
So far this year, he has
apparently killed six mares, four colts, four sheep and a goat, and demolished
two beehives. “He’s a bear whose behaviour is very predatory,” Ferran Miralles,
the director general of environmental policy at the Catalan regional
government, said.
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