Marmots expanding into Catalan Pre-Pyrenees
March 15th, 2010
The Alpine Marmot is successfully spreading into the Catalan Pre-Pyrenees, and there may now be as many as 10,000 individuals in the region. Read the rest of this entry
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Articles in ‘Pyrenees’
Guide to the Catalan Pyrenees
March 15th, 2010
Simon Rice who writes an excellent blog here on iberianature has put together this comprehensive and original guide to the Eastern Catalan Pyrenees (and Pre-Pyrenees) which he calls “The Book”.
Scroll down for sub links in to wildlife, history, geography, food and culture.
The region of the Pallars Jussà and Sobirà, that is to say, the valley of the river Noguera Pallaresa, contains an extraordinary variety of environments within a relatively small area, with an abundance of associated wildlife. The fact that the region has until recently been isolated from the built-up areas around Barcelona and Catalonia’s coastal strip means that these environments remained in pristine condition while more accessible areas suffered the depredations of modern times, such as the use of pesticides, forest clearance, etc. Notwithstanding the fact that Catalonia’s star turn, the wonderful Parc Nacional d’Aigüestortes I Estany de Sant Maurici, was founded during this period, in 1955, the region now hosts dozens of large protected areas.
Contrasting attitudes towards bears
November 26th, 2009
Interesting long article on bears in El Pais contrasting the acceptance of bears in Asturias with the general opposition in the Pyrenees. Read
The Great Mountain Corridor
November 26th, 2009
The Great Mountain Corridor is an idea to create a vast ecological corridor connecting the Cantabrian Mountains, the Pyrenees and the Alps, and possibly eventually, the Balkans, along which wolves, bears and other animals could roam relatively unhindered.
The GMC is a 1300-kilometre swathe of land connecting the Cantabrian mountains in Spain to the Italian Alps via the Pyrenees and Massif Central in France. It might even be extended into the Carpathian mountains of eastern Europe. “It’s not unrealistic to think that in 20 years there could be a good corridor between the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkans,” says Miquel Rafa of Obra Social Caixa Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, a charitable organisation that is promoting the project. Some of the land in the proposed corridor is already protected, and Rafa’s aim is to fill in the gaps. Over the past decade, his organisation has spent 8 million euro buying 80 square kilometres of land between the Cantabrians and the Pyrenees. He estimates that only another 80 square kilometres is needed to complete that part of the corridor. There are already success stories to report. Last year, a wolf from the Cantabrian mountains was spotted in the Pyrenees, not far from one of many packs that arrived there from the French Alps around 10 years ago – the first wolves in the Pyrenees since the 1930s. These packs made a hazardous crossing of the Rhone valley, parts of which are industrialised. It will be remarkable if groups from the Cantabrians and French Alps meet and breed in the Pyrenees, says Rafa, as the populations have been separated for over 800 years. To win local support, Rafa and colleagues have also provided shepherds with Pyrenean mountain dogs, a muscular breed that will defend livestock against wolves. More here from New Scientist article nabbed here “Megaconservation: Saving wildernesses on a giant scale”
See also Territori i Paisatge here
No livestock killed by bears in Catalonia
November 7th, 2009 The improved protection for shepherds and herders in Catalonia has meant for the third year running no livestock has been lost to bear attacks. FapasThe Pyrenees need more bears
October 30th, 2009 A new French study has shown that at least 13 bears should be released in the Pyrenees in the near future if the species has any chance of becoming viable. La Mañana On another story, Camille, one of only two bears in Navarra has killed four sheep in Roncal, as he fattens up for hibernation. HereTimid French support for bears?
October 23rd, 2009 France has promised to “replace” any bears killed by hunters in the Pyrenees as part of its commitment to the animal, but does not seem likely to release any additional bears. Whether this means that the four bears killed in the last decade are to be replaced is still unclear. Fapas With only 20 odd animals in the range, freezing the reintroduction programme in this way may very well lead to its extinction.Pyrenees bear hunt
October 23rd, 2009
I came across this rather harrowing photo in a book review of Historie de l’ours dans les Pyrénées in El Pireneo Digital. It was taken in 1928 after a hunt in Urdós, Valle de Aspe across the border in France. In 1935, some 200 bears still survived in the Pyrenees and Pre-Pyrenees. The last bear steak was offered in restaurant in French Pyrenees in 1960. A ban on hunting came in Spain in 1967 and in France several years later. Today, with just 20 odd animals in the entire Pyrenees – most of which were brought from the Balkans, further reintroduction is the only way of re-creating a viable population of bears in the range.
Future of Pyrennean bears in doubt
October 21st, 2009 Without further reintroductions, the low number of bears in the Pyrenees (15-20 odd) make the conservation of the species inviable. For the time being, the French government has no plans to continue its reintroduction plans. Public support for bears in Catalonia is as high as 80%, but strong local opposition particularly in the Vall de Aran prevents any reintroduction programme from this side of the mountain range. Fapas from La Mañana de LleridaPyrenean bear map
August 28th, 2009I thought this map from Fapas showing the latest bear numbers in the Pyrenees was interesting
Pyrenean bear with cubs
May 6th, 2009
Hvala, the bear at the centre of the furore last autumn after biting a hunter, has been photographed with two cubs by wardens from the Vall d’Aran. Another bear, Sarousse, which was also released in 2006, may also have cubs, and if so could spell the beginning of a rise in the Pyrenean population.
Pireneodigital
Hvala awakes
April 5th, 2009
Hvala, the bear who bit a hunter last year in the Vall d’Arán, has woken from her winter slumber. She was probably pregnant when she went into hibernation and the biologists monitoring her suspect she may have a cub or two, as she is staying in the same area (Bossòst, Vall d’Arán). Let us hope she is left in peace to raise them.
El Periodico
Disappearance of glaciers in the Pyrenees
February 24th, 2009Another study has highlighted the likely disappearance of the glaciers in the Pyrenees in the next 40-50 years.
Since the first study by French geographer Franz Schrader in 1894, the Pyrenean glaciers have lost 88 percent of their 1,779-hectare surface area, according to a report by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment. Low rainfall and the rise in temperatures is leading to their rapid melting, and it is estimated that by the middle of the century, they will have vanished altogether. This has accelerated in recent years with the glaciers losing 72 hectares between 2002 and 2008. One of the most striking examples is that of La Madaleta glacier, one of the largest in the Pyrenees, whose thickness has shrunk by 180 metres since 1991 at an average rate of 11 metes a year. The absence of snowfall in summer in recent years has exacerbated this regression. Lower snowfall is also likely to spell long-ter, disaster for the skiing industry.
- El Pirineo español se funde (El País)
- Glaciers to disappear in the Pyrenees by 2050 (more details)
- Glaciers in Spain (2004) Spanish glaciers melting fast Greenpeace has released a report on the state of Spain’s glaciers. The glaciers on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees are melting fast.. Total surface area has dropped from 1779 hectares in 1894 to 290 in 2000, representing a fall of 85% in of surface area. 52% of this has occurred in the last 20 years, and 30% between 1991 and 2001.
Otter watching in the Catalan Pyrenees
February 9th, 2009
Simon chanced upon this beautiful otter in the Catalan Pyrenees.
There could hardly seem a less promising place to go naturalising than the stretch of the Noguera Pallaresa just downstream from Tremp, ‘capital’ of the Pallars Jussà comarca in the Catalan pre-Pyrenees.
Freedom for Hvala!
November 3rd, 2008If you’d like to show your support for the bear, Hvala, currently being persecuted in the Pyrenees (see previous post), there is now a petition in Catalan that can be signed. Click on “Signas per l’ossa” (nom = first name, cognom = surname).
The rainfall records for Spain keep tumbling. According to the latest provisional figures 
I’ve just come across 
Three Iberian lynxes of the captive breeding programme have died in recent weeks from a renal disease. Lynxes in the wild are thought not to suffer from this disease.