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Bear photo: Dave Watts

A shepherd in favour of the bear?

The subject that comes up most often these days is The Bear. "What do you think about bears? Why do you say, shepherd, that you are in favour of them?"

Difficult to give a simple answer.

Fundamentally, as a human being and a man of the Pyrenees, I deeply believe that our mountains are no longer the same, that they lose a bit of their magnificence, whenever a bear dies. He has always been the myth and symbol of our land, an integral part of it. More concretely, his presence is the proof that our land remains natural, that biodiversity is still possible here and not simply a semblance of nature made for and by man.

More pragmatically, the bear is there. People over whom I, a shepherd, have no power decided in 1994 to reintroduce three animals from Slovenia. What else to do but try to adapt?

It's true that Mr. Bear, even though not carnivorous, permits himself to snack on a few sheep (about 40 per bear per year) and I love my animals too much to lose them like that, so...?

The real question is: "Do we have the means to avoid his attacks? To limit his predation to an acceptable level?" Now, after 5 years of experience with and several visits from bears, I believe the answer is yes -- providing we look at the situation completely objectively and dispassionately and that all concerned accept that pastoralism is an essential element of Pyreneen activity and avoid a hardline, pro-wilderness stance to the detriment of the daily activity of farmers, shepherds and cowherds.

And then, democracy and honesty oblige us to take into account the tens of thousands of signatures obtained by the "defenders of the bear", even though it's true they are from city dwellers. I don't see what sheep farmers will gain by marginalising themselves even further.

What remains to be bridged -- and not further deepened! -- are the divisions between the positions of the politicians, the ecologists and the farmers or the shepherds. Must it be that those who "know" alone decide, still and always? Is the bear in this affair not a symbol, the straw of the multiple problems of mountain farmers: desertification, fall in market prices, globalisation, productivity pressure in agriculture that puts strains on the life of the valleys, loss of culture, of references, of assistance, various subsidies that generate a feeling of frustration if not culpability?

Wouldn't one solution be a round table discussion on the theme "What future for the Pyrenees?" or "What type of rurality to we wish to put in place?"

The farming world has been often caracterised by its immobilism, its resistance to change. There too the bear is a disturbance. It's difficult to admit the need to change one's pastoral practices, yet practices have already changed several times. What a difference between the customs of yesteryear and the current management whereby one finds a shepherd for 1000 or 2000 sheep, a cowherd for 100 to 300 cows! Isn't there enough to reflect on now, to image a sharing of the mountain before it's imposed on us from outside, with all the inconveniences that automatically brings? To learn to share one's space--in the past there was one user: the farmer-shepherd. Now there is a farmer who owns the animals, the shepherd who is more and more often a simple employee, the hunter who is sometimes a city dweller, different types of tourism, different categories of "techniciens" with more or less fuzzy conceptions of environmental practices in the management of the space, ecologists more or less hardline.

In (provisional) conclusion, a few questions: Is a real debate possible? Did one ever take place? It seems to me that dialogue is what's missing. I hope that these few lines will cause some reflection, that one day we'll manage to unite in a positive way the naturalists, pastoralists, representatives of the state and the politicians and that dreams will begin to be anchored in a reality acceptable to all.