Pastoral Husbandry in Ariège: Animal Vulnerability on Rangelands, Adaptations to Accompaniment Measures of the Brown Bear (Ursus artos) Reintroduction and Conservation Plan in French Pyrenees 2006-2009 and Farming System evolutions

1.1.5.2 Brown bear ecology

Brown bears can be found in many habitats, from the fringes of deserts to high mountain forests and ice fields. In Europe, the brown bear is mostly found in mountain woodlands, in Siberia it occurs primarily in forests while in North America they prefer tundra, alpine meadows and coastlines. The species' main requirements are areas with dense cover in which they can shelter by day.

1.1.5.3 Social Structure

Although mostly solitary, bears sometimes aggregate in large numbers at important food sources and form family foraging groups. In these cases, a dominance hierarchy involving aggression is established. While it is large adult males that are the highest-ranking, the most aggressive individuals are females that have young.

1.1.5.4 Life Cycle

Young born bears are vulnerable, being blind, naked and weighing only 340 to 680 grams. Cubs grow quickly, reaching 25kg by 6 months, and continue lactating for 18 to 30 months while eating a variety of foods. Cubs usually remain with the mother until the third or fourth year of their life. In the wild, the brown bears can reach 20 to 30 years of age.

1.1.5.5 Breeding

Sometimes males may fight over females, and once they have won, they tend to guard them for 1 to 3 weeks. Brown bears mate from May to July, and a gestation of 180 to 266 days follows, with births occurring from January to March, usually while the female is still in hibernation. She generally lays down two to three offspring and breeds again 2 to 4 years later.

1.1.5.6 Diet

Brown bears are omnivorous, and their diet varies with the season: from grass and shoots in the spring to berries and apples in the summer, nuts and plums in autumn. All year round they eat roots, insects, mammals, reptiles, and of course, honey and livestock.

1.1.5.7 Human - Animal Conflict

Bears are sometimes known to attack livestock and water pipes, raid orchards, attack rubbish bins and on occasion storehouses of food. People are naturally scared of these large predators and the first reaction is to attack or shoot them. However, attacks on humans do not appear to be a result of predatory behaviour, but rather a result of the bear defending itself, its cubs or a carcass against humans. The presence of a wounded bear is the most dangerous situation (Ministry of ecology, 2006; WWF & FERRUS, 2008^9(*)).

1.1.5.8 The dynamics' expansion of the bear on the areas of stock farm

If territories occupied by wolves are precisely the same as those valued by mountain and Mediterranean pastoral farm stocking, especially sheep (Garde, 2002), those occupied by bears should be much extended because of their diets and their living areas.

1.1.5.9 Spread out of damage

The predation on livestock has direct and indirect damage to the farm and increases the workload of the shepherd or the stockbreeder. Thus, the presence of the bear is supposed to disapprove pastoralism sustainability and the presence of herds in the mountain. The whole issue related to predation on livestock gives rise to an acute social crisis (MAUZ, 2002) related to technical difficulties as well as denial strategies of the role of predators in these difficulties carried out by its defenders (Garde, 2000). Despite significant efforts of ranchers to defend themselves against the arrival of predators, classical protection systems have many limitations, and cannot constitute a sustainable solution. Predation constraints, in addition to weak income in livestock rearing, discourage the establishment of young farmers (Anonymous, 2007a).

In Peril, nature and life on Earth are currently suffering from one mode of society. The capitalist system, largely dominant in the Western world is experiencing a global expansion: globalization. Intensive farming has generated too many negative externalities to environment. Today, the "manufacture" of a new agriculture, which led to the concept of multifunctionality of farms, is much represented by extensive systems. Large predators (wolves, bears...), umbrella and/or keystone species of most of northern ecosystems of the planet, are they bringing to light this rejection of nature, or are they victims of "perfection of means and confusion of purpose" of this century? Today, it is perhaps no more fear that leads to eliminate the predator. Economic interest of stock farming, profits and, more generally, economic growth, have become the major objectives of mankind at the expense of nature, unfortunately, and man, finally. Everything becomes goods, which is not necessarily shameful: all work merit pay; and create the beauty of landscape or building is the same work... remain to determine the values and equivalencies!

* ⁹ http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/species/problems/human_animal_conflict/human_bears_wolves_conflict.cfm