Talk given at the Festival of Transhumance, in Santa Eulàlia de Puig-Oriol, Catalonia on 21 September 2024.
Is it possible to save both bears and shepherds? That was the question I asked myself when I started researching my book The Implausible Rewilding of the Pyrenees.
I soon realized that it wasn’t just a question of bears and sheep; there were many other animals involved. And it wasn’t just a matter of biology. Animals also have cultural connotations.
I also realised that the reintroduction of bears can be classified as rewilding.
I want to be clear; my book is not propaganda in favour of rewilding. It is about the relationship between rewilding and agriculture. But you know much more about agriculture than I do, so today I want to talk mainly about the ideas behind rewilding.
About me
I think I should tell you a little bit about my background. I was born in England, but I’ve been living near the Pyrenees for twenty-seven years. Here, nature is wilder. For the British, the rewilding of the Pyrenees is like a legend, with fire-breathing dragons. How can you live with bears and wolves, they ask?
I came to the Pyrenees initially to walk, but over time I began to focus my attention on the reintroduction of bears.
The process of writing
Many farmers told me that livestock breeding was in danger. Environmentalists and other farmers said it was possible to adapt to bears. Who was right? For many years I pondered this question.
Then, in July 2017, 209 French sheep died in a stampede caused by a bear on Mont Roig. In December of that year there was a protest meeting in Foix, in Ariège. I went to the event, and it was at that meeting that the idea of the book was born.
Over the following two years, I spoke with Gisèle Gouazé, one of the Mont Roig farmers. I also spoke to thirty other shepherds and farmers, most of them in the mountains. In addition, I talked with environmentalists and politicians. In France, Catalonia and Italy.
The purpose of my book is to present their views and let the reader decide who is right.
Also, in December 2017, an anonymous video was sent to the media. In it, the masked participants called for bears to be killed. Since then, four bears have been eliminated; one of them, Cachou, in the Aran Valley.
Let’s go back to the beginning. In 1996 there were only five brown bears in the Pyrenees. That year, two females were brought from Slovenia, and nine others have followed. One of them, Goiat, was released in Pallars Sobirà in 2016. There are now at least 83 bears in the mountains.
Last year, half of them were seen in Catalonia, mainly in Pallars Sobirà and Aran Valley; a similar number visit the Couserans, in Ariège.
The bears are thriving, with the population increasing by 11% annually. A French government report predicts there will be 350 bears by 2050.
Despite this prediction, the future of bears in the Pyrenees is not assured. The main problem at the moment is inbreeding. In contrast, the global population is not threatened.
Sheep
Moving on to livestock: on the French side of the Pyrenees, 530,000 sheep go up to the estives (summer pastures) every year. So do 210,000 head of cattle.
French mountain farmers receive subsidies that typically account for more than half of their income. They also receive money to help protect sheep from bears and compensation for dead animals.
Couserans and Pallars Sobirà
Here in Catalonia, the bears live in Pallars Sobirà and the Vall d’Aran. In Pallars Sobirà, which is the centre of my attention, there are 3,200 sheep and goats in four large flocks.
In the Couserans, in Ariège, there are 20,600 sheep and goats in high mountains.
Conflict
The number of animals killed or injured by Pyrenean bears remained stable until 2016, but then increased from about 150 to 600. 2019, blighted by stampedes, looks exceptional.
In France, in 2023, 552 sheep were attacked, most of them dying. I could not find the figures for Catalonia, but I estimate that less than thirty sheep were killed.
In both France and Spain, almost all estives affected by predation now have shepherds and livestock protection dogs. The sheep spend the night in a fold.
It is clear that coexistence is more problematic in France than in Catalonia.
It is also clear that the estives are difficult. As shepherd Jérôme Brunet says: “If you love your sheep and expose them to danger, you are walking one step away from the precipice… Your survival instinct means that you are living on the edge for ninety days. And then, sometimes, pam! Dead sheep. Sleepless nights!”
What is rewilding?
As I said at the beginning, the reintroduction of bears is not an isolated phenomenon. The arrival of bears, the protection of wolves, and the captive breeding of the Iberian lynx are part of the same idea: rewilding.
The concept of rewilding emerged in the USA in the 1990s. It asserts that nature is not just a collection of animals and plants. That would be a zoo. Nature is also the relationship between species. Thus, rewilding is a matter of encouraging natural processes where they are lacking. Predation is one. Eating carrion, another. Making dams in rivers, another.
I’m talking about bears, wolves, eagles, vultures and beavers. Rewilding also includes improving soil health by increasing its organic content. Promoting forests…
In the huge empty national parks in the USA, rewilding is biology. But in Europe, rewilding is more about culture. Is there room for wild nature? Is it even desirable?
How did rewilding get on the political agenda?
Our perceptions about animals go back a long way. Sheep were always good. One only has to look at the Bible to find numerous references to this statement. In the past, the wool and skin of a sheep, its clothing, became the clothing of human beings. Everyone wore wool. Also, mutton was turned into human flesh. There was an intimate connection.
At the same time, the pagan cults of northern Europe venerated bears. When Christianity became established, pagan ideas had to be suppressed. Bears became vermin, Christianity preferred lions.
It was only when bears were almost gone that their condition began to change radically. Specifically at Christmas 1902, when the teddy bears were first given to American children. Americans were no longer afraid; bears were suitable for children’s bedrooms. (Imagine the Pyrenees at that time, with about two hundred bears. A teddy bear would have been a nightmare for a child!)
Consequently, American society would wake up with the idea that bears were harmless. It is an idea that has spread, and this is part of the reason reintroduction is possible. This is not biology; it is the cultural conception that has changed. Bears are perceived as less dangerous.
Also, more recently, new voices are questioning the value attributed to animals. Both France and Spain have passed new animal welfare laws. There are more vegetarians and vegans. Intensive livestock farming is often criticized.
Jérôme told me: “For city dwellers, a sheep is just a plastic tray in a supermarket fridge… I think when you don’t raise sheep, you don’t know what they are… Society is completely disassociating itself from these animals that have accompanied us for ten thousand years.”
Cultural connections with bears in the Pyrenees
Nature hasn’t changed, cultural perceptions have. But there are some cultural conceptions that have remained unchanged for centuries. The bear festivals in the Pyrénées-Orientales at the eastern end of the massif have recently become World Cultural Heritage.
Bear Festival in Prats de Molló
In Prats de Molló, every February, a man dresses up as a bear. Approaching the village, he attacks the first woman he sees, as in the John the Bear folk tale. At this point, the hunters fire their guns, and the bear looks for another victim. Symbolically, the bear is a sexual predator. At the end of the event, in the marketplace, barbers shave the bear to reveal the man inside.
Symbolically, in traditional culture, as the anthropologist Sophie Bobbé tells us, the bear represents sexuality. This did not please the Christian church.
On the other hand, the wolf represents hunger. I am thinking of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. And of the expression ‘keeping the wolf from the door’.
Cominac imports bears from Slovenia
There is another cultural connection to bears. In the Couserans, bear taming was a significant source of income in the 19th and early 20th century as the following event demonstrates.
In 1906, the State wanted to requisition the church in Cominac. The population showed up at the door with three tamers and their bears. They refused to allow officials to enter. It was a case of locals and bears on the one hand and the government on the other. Just a century ago, the inhabitants of Ariège and bears were united against the government. How things have changed since then!
Fauna, farmers and flocks: can they live together?
So, “Can bears and sheep coexist in the Pyrenees?” As we have seen, both culture and biology must be considered.
Well, despite all the interviews, I don’t have a clear yes-or-no answer to the question.
Obviously, more work should be done to protect sheep and shepherds. But would it be enough?
I think some estives will be abandoned because there are too many attacks. In some areas, sheep will be replaced by cows or horses. But what counts is not the number of bears, but the subsidies.
***
There are many people involved in the issue. Shepherds, livestock owners, hikers, tourists, skiers, hunters, ecologists. No one has a monopoly of the truth.
I hope that my book will be a window through which readers can see the diverse issues more clearly.