Scattered population :

The brown bear solely exists today in the northern United States and Canada (60.000 Bears).

Europe has 40.000 bears, principaly located in eastern countries and in Scandinavia.

In France, in the Pyrénées, there was less than sixty bears when hunting was forbidden in 1972.The bears don't reproduce as easily as other large mammals.


To increase chances of reproduction, bears require a large protected territory. In order to save the bears , we have to respect then endangered species status.Making the public sensitive to bear protection is difficult. A large and intensive disruption of the bear territory by tourists is bad.



The 21th october 2004, the female bear Cannelle, the last original pyrenean bear to be found, was killed in Asp valley in atlantic Pyrénées.

With only two male survivors, the pyrenean race is lost.

To save the bears, there is only one solution : to bring a new male and female bears together. One governmental decision was taken at the end of december 2004.On the 14th of january,Serge Lepeltier, ecology minister, announced the reintroduction of five bears in the Pyrenees.A restauration and conservation brown bear's plan in the Pyrénées was organised for 2006-2009 by Nelly Olin, ecology new minister.

Discussions were conducted with forest men in order to define form of managment adapted to bears.