Un-bear-able environmental crisis

In America we have a plethora of bear images; there are cuddly teddy bears, Care Bears that stare, yummy Gummi Bears, and bears that live in big blue houses. What is it about the bear that immediately connects it with a distinct geographic location and culture? Images of panda bears are immediately associated with China and tall bamboo forests, while polar bears conjure images of the frozen tundra and an icy wasteland.

Regardless of nationality, bears are evocative of a certain spirit of strength, and they become a symbol of the area to which they are endemic.

The brown bear, or ursus arctos, was common across Europe, but declined rapidly until it could only be found in Scandinavia and the Pyrenees. In fact, the brown bear became symbolic of the Pyrenees Mountains themselves, but it can be no longer be a symbol. It is a story to which a certain British Pooh Bear might reply, "Oh, bother."

The Valley of the Bears in the Pyrenees may have begun the muffled progression towards silence when on Monday, Nov. 1, a hunter shot and killed the last known female brown bear native to the Pyrenees, thus condemning the species to extinction. The 15-year-old female, affectionately named Cannelle (Cinnamon) by game wardens, was the only reproducing female of the six that live in the mountain range. The sole hope of the species now lies with her 10-month-old cub whose sex is undetermined. The cub fled after Cannelle was shot, and animal protection groups are worried that the barely weaned orphan may not survive.

A group of boar hunters claimed to have fired in self-defense when Cannelle charged their dogs out of fright. The French environmental ministry has said that the hunter acted in legitimate self-defense firing from less then five meters in order protect himself. Action Nature, an environmental group, has condemned the occurrence citing that the organizers of the boar hunt knew the bear and cub were in the vicinity. Nature Action officials went further stating, "No extenuating circumstances can justify this unspeakable act," and continued to add that the shooting was "catastrophic for one of the most emblematic species of our natural heritage."

Bernard Place, president of the departmental hunter's federation, also condemned the killing saying, "The hunters had been warned there was a bear in the area. There should not have been any hunt. I am dumbstruck." An investigation by the environmental ministry is underway to determine how the hunters were allowed to organize a shoot in the area. France's Association for the Protection of Wild Animals said it would ask for charges against the killer and the head of the hunting club who organized the shoot.

The bear's death was cited generally as an "environmental catastrophe" by the French government. President Jacques Chirac said, "The disappearance of a species is always a serious loss for biodiversity." Environmental Minister, Serge Lepeltier, stated, "It is an ecological catastrophe because this was the last female bear of the Pyrenean line."

This is how the brown bear dies, with a bang and a whimper. No longer shall France be able to ask, "Brown bear, Brown bear, what do you see?" But in Scandinavia and North America the brown bear lives on beyond the extinction of the Pyrenees species. The grizzly bear and the Kodiak bear are the North American cousins of the Pyrenees brown bear, and here in North America they are found in national parks.

Sources: Tiscali Reference Encyclopedia, Guardian Unlimited, Telegraph Group Limited