It appears that Camille, the last autochthonous Pyrenean bear, may have died, after 9 months without any sign of him. His death at the age of 20 comes as no surprise but is a sad symbol of the disappearance of bears in the range.  Now the hope lies in the 20 or so bears which have introduced (or born of introduced animals) in the Pyrenees by the French government from Slovenia. In the photo Camille sits next to the tasty feast of a dead wild boar, somewhere in the Navarran Pyrenees. 20 minutos

This article from Wildlife Extra is also interesting. New research suggests Cantabrian female brown bears do not hibernate while cubs are still young proves anecdotal evidence first recorded many centuries ago.

Bears in the Pyrenees have had their best breeding year for decades this year with two females raisning two cubs each, in territories between Vall d’Aran and y los departamentos franceses de Ariège y Alto Garona. El Periódico

The Black Vulture Aegypius monachus is currently being reintroduced in the Catalan Pyrenees. Some 27 individuals were released between 2007 and 2009 in the Alinyà area. Each bird is being tracked: 15 regularly use the area, 3 are dispersing, 7 have been found dead and 3 are missing. A chick born on 25th April at one of the release sites was was the first to be born in the region since the late 19th century. Black Vultures in the Pyrenees

Note: SEO made the black vulture its Ave del Año for 2010.

“Voila! Hvala!” exclaims Pierre-Yves Quenette, standing in a snowy clearing in the forests outside of Pyrénées National Park. He’s reading a message on his cell phone. Hvala, a 200-pound brown bear with two cubs, has been found. National Geographic

The Spanish Pyrenees in Aragon is an ideal summer vacation target for those who appreciate traditional villages and scenic trekking. Above 2,000 meters, the air stays fresh and fly-free even during the hottest spells of July and August. On your walks along the well marked tracks and paths, you encounter gorgeus lagoons and waterfalls accompanied with cool views to the glaciers of the mountain ranges of Posets, Maladeta and Monte Perdido.

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.

Marmots became extinct in the Pyrenees at the end of the last ice age, but were introduced by hunters into the French Pyrenees in 1948 in an attempt to reduce the pressure of predation on chamois by golden eagles. By the 1960s, they had crossed the frontier (first appearing in 1962-1964 in the valley of Otal, Huesca), and have since flourished on the warmer side of the range. According to marmot expert Bernat Claramunt, their arrival appears to have had some negative consequences on ecologies:

“As an herbivore that lives in colonies, its impact on the flora of the alpine and subalpine fields can be significant. In addition, it can be a key competitor for other herbivores that it coexists with, like the ptarmigan”

But they have also provided food for birds of prey who have found them “easy to capture”. Studies on the remains of golden eagles’  nests indicate that they frequently feast on marmots. Foxes also prey on them.

Again Bernat Claramunt notes:

“Very probably, the adaptive flexibility of marmots, the best climatic conditions on the southern slope of the range, and the lower density of significant predators, explain the rapid expansion of the species”. More here

They are likely to continue to expand in the coming decades much to the delight of hikers and birds of prey.

• The alpine marmot spreads into the Catalan Pyrenees
• Las marmotas colonizan con rapidez el Pirineo catalán (el Periodico)
• Distribution map of Alpine marmots
• Photo by Sylvouille on wikipedia

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.

Visit Simon’s guide to the Catalan Pyrenees

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

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.

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

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.

See also:

• 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.

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.

Read on iberianture

sosossospirineu.org

• El Períodico
• El lince europeo en España

Following the hysteria surrounding a hunter who was bitten by a bear last week (full story here on iberianature), the Catalan government has decided to study bears in the Pyrenees more closely and are to set up a new group to monitor the bears in the Aran valley to avoid any similar incidences in the future. Fapas have commented and point out that while this is the first incident of its kind in the Pyrenees, hunters are far more likely to suffer injuries (and death) at the hands of other hunters (20 hunters are killed by other hunters a year in Spain.) The bear in question Hvala is currently in France and so is safe for the time being from the attempts by the Aranese authorities to capture her. Ecological organisations are threatening legal action should they be successful. El Mundo

The images above (El Mundo) are the first of Hvala since the incident took place.

• Follow this story on the forum as it unfolds

• See story and video here at El País
• Aran Bear eating roe deer
• Brown bear population in the Pyrenees

Monte Perdido, the Lost Mountain, (3355m) is the third highest peak in the Pyrenees but until the early 19th century it was thought that to be the highest. It does, however, boast the highest waterfall (400m) in Europe and the second largest glacier in the Pyrenees. The mountain is home to many legends, perhaps the most evocative of which is this one:

A palace was built at the beginning of time by the mythical Enchanter of the Peaks, Atland, who put a spell on the palace so that only certain people could enter it. Polished walls and towers protected it and hid behind them vast gardens and meadows that were like an earthly paradise. The palace is still bound by Atland’s spell and can only be entered if you are riding on the back of a flying horse. More legends from Aragon

• Mountains of Spain (Iberianature)
• Monte Perdido glacier (Iberianature)
• Monte Perdido (Wikipedia)
• Monte Perdido (UNESCO – English)
• Web oficial del Ministerio de Medio Ambiente

Lucy has posted on her iberianature blog this fantastic series of five trip reports on her recent trip to Aiguestortes in the Catalan Pyrenees. Enjoy.

The renewed silence was broken by a piercing whistle, as if a referee had just stopped play. The first time I ever heard a marmot’s warning call, I was sure it was a bird. One tone warns of raptors and another of danger on the ground. The Pyrenean marmots didn’t survive the last ice age, but were re-introduced in 1948, and have been burrowing there extensively ever since. They are Europe’s largest and perhaps shaggiest rodents, preferring to stay underground on hot days, as well as hibernating throughout winter. This upright marmot was on lookout duty. Read

Another update on brown bears in the Pyrenees. The population of bears in the range has “stabilised” at 20 individuals, of which only two (old) males and one cub belong to the autocthonous “group of Pyrenean bears. The remaining bears are those introduced from Eastern Europe in 1996, 1997 and 2006, or are cubs of these animals.

In Catalonia, in the last year at least 12 bears have been recorded passing some time here, and as some of these are now cubs, we can now begin to talk about a second generation growing up since the reintroductions began. A sign of the increased activity of bears is the first recording of a bear In the Vall d’Arán for a number of years. Watch the video of a female bear being followed by a male here. Both have recently awoken from hibernation.

The latest DNA evidence suggests that the genetic difference between Spanish bears and those from the rest of Europe is small, and therefore there should be no reason to oppose transfers from other areas on biological grounds. See Wikipedia for more on links on this. In 2007, brown bears in the Catalan Pyrenees killed 20 sheep, 1 cow and 1 horse, which the Catalan Government compensated to a tune of 6,640 euros. A small price to pay. See pirineos.com

See also Pyrenean bear news

The French hunter who in 2004 shot Canelle, considered the last autochthonous Pyrenean female bear has been absolved by a court, which believed the hunter’s version that he did so in self-defence after the bear attacked him. The death of Canelle caused outrage in France and led directly to the current reintroduction project of Slovenian bears. El Pais

Also in the Pyrenees, Guillermo Palomero, president of the Fundación Oso Pardo, notes that the Pyrenees still has enough habitat for a bear population to develop and stresses the role bears could play in increasing the need to combat the animal’s poor image here in contrast to the Cantabrian Mountains. (Aragon Digital). Some 15-20 animals survive on both sides of the border.

Using a technique for the first time with this species, the Foundation for the Reintroduction of the Lammergeier hope to release a bird bred completely isolated from human contact. They’ve built a 6x6m platform at 1,500m in Ordesa which includes a heated nest with a “puppet” adult bird to feed the chick and, next to it, a cage which the chick will be moved into after 80 days to continue the natural imprinting process as in this area of the Pyrenees there is the largest population of the species in Europe. A feeding station next to the cage will provide opportunity for the chick (born in Feb.) to observe and learn natural adult behaviour. After 120 days the young bird will fly for the first time.
They say that this tecnique will be used in the “near future” for the release of three birds in the Picos de Europa, from which I guess will be next year, the only difference being that the birds will be relocated from the Pyrenees two weeks before their first flights in the Picos.

The conservation group are already using another technique of strategically placing caged adult birds in areas in which they hope to encourage the Lammergeier to return.

For more info go to the discussion on Iberianature forum

Posted by Lisa

“Franska, the female bear accused of having killed 150 sheep in the Pyrenees, was killed in a road “accident”" near Lourdes last Thursday (9th) at 6.30am. Her search for territory has ended. Photo below from Fapas. An autopsy has revealed dozens of small calibre gun shot pellets were found in her body dating from weeks before.  Her bullet-ridden body is being blamed for her erratic behaviour (farmers blame her for the death of 150 sheep in a couple of months) The autopsy also revealed her age as being 17 and not 7 as the Slovenian authorities had stated.”

“Environment news from consumer.es regards the death as suspicious. Had she been regularly crossing the road at that point I wonder? Of the five Slovenian bears reintroduced to the Pyrenees, there are now three remaining. Another female was found dead at the foot of a cliff not long after being released.”

“Sadly, another dead bear from elmundo.es; A dead bear has been found in a field in the Palentine area of the Cordillera (we were driving in the area yesterday) and tests are being carried out to try and establish the cause. As the photo shows, much of the corpse has been eaten by other animals. The bear was about 20 years old so it could have died of natural causes (on open ground??) although in the last few years, 9 bears have been found dead in this area; 6 poisoned, 2 shot and one cause of death unknown. Possibly, cubs could be added to this list affected by the death of mothers”

See also forum thread on this news
 http://www.iberianatureforum.com/index.php?topic=455.msg3230;boardseen#new</p>

21/01/2007 These photos of wallcreepers were sent to me by bird guide Johan Bos of Natura Aragon -don’t be put put off by the Dutch- he also runs trips for English people. Johan notes:

“Wallcreepers in spring or summer: a difficult species for every birdwatcher. Annoying even. They can be anywere high up in the mountains. But in winter: they are sometimes very easy to see, like at Los Mallos de Riglos in Aragon. Just scan the sunny walls and, especially, look in the shady parts: they’ll be there searching for slow insects and caterpillars hiding in the cracks. Wallcreepers migrate vertically: from the high mountains to the lower region, were the climate is much milder. Sometimes you’ll even find them on ancient churches. Taking pictures is always difficult because they move around so quickly. On the other hand: they aren’t particularly shy and are even used to climbers”. Thanks Johan, Nick. Note, in Spanish there known as trepariscos (crag-climbers, if you like)

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Photo by F. Marquez.

This is the world’s only bone-eater. They feed on marrow which they get by dropping bones repeatedly onto rocks, as their Spanish name, quebrantahuesos, aptly suggests. They’ll come back again and again to their favourite rocky areas known in English as ossuaries.
The evocative English Lammergeier or Lammergeyer (both correct) comes from the German, lammergeier, meaning “lamb-vulture“. This was apparently coined by 19th century naturalists due to the mistaken and incredibly widespread belief across Central Europe that they would take young lambs.
They are also known in English as bearded vultures. This is in reference to the ochre ruff of quills they sport around their necks. They are not born with this colour, but acquire the colour by actively seeking out iron-rich muds and rubbing their feathers in them. One theory goes that in a stand-off, the redder the feather, the tougher the lammergeyer, though I need to check this.
The female lammergeyer lays one egg, and then a few days later, lays another. The second chick plays the role of a substitute if the first egg fails to hatch. In most cases, the second chick dies, despite the efforts of its parents to feed it: the older sibling is stronger and takes its food. And then, when the right moment arrives it will kill its brother or sister. This is known by biologists as Cainism, the advantage being that if the first chick fails to hatch or dies young the second chick is at hand. Some of these second chicks are now being rescued are used as part of a captive breeding programme in Andalucia.
• The most serious problem for the bird is poisoning. Some 40% of unnatural deaths of lammergeyers in Spain are from poisoned meat put out principally, these days, to kill foxes, though in the past the bird also suffered from more direct persecution
• Unusally, reproductive units can be comprised of two or three adults. Groups of three appear to be more common that thought. In the latter case there usually are two males and one female, although exceptionally reproductive units made up of four specimens have been observed. The members of the group mount each other as part of a bizarre mating simulation, male on male and female on male.
Currently the Spanish Pyrenean population is comprised of around 125 occupied territories (2004) with an estimated pre-adult population of 156-162 specimens distributed in an area of 21,000 km2. Perhaps the best site to them is the Sierra de Guara with 12 bearded vulture territories, the densest population in Europe. ,
There really is so much more. Just about the only live prey they take are tortoises, which they also dash on the rocks, though as they have been pushed out of low-lying areas this may no longer occur, and certainly not in Spain. Legends abound across Eurasia and Africa. There are for instance strong associations with the pheonix and the bearded vulture. More on this soon. More on lammergeyers in Spain and here on lammergeyer around the world

Piedrafita [in Jaca], a little village containing forty six houses is fed by a little valley and surrounded on every side by mountains. The shepherd dogs are large, well qualified to engage the wolves, which are here in great abundance. They wear a spiked collar to protect the neck, and to prevent the wolf from fixing on that mortal part. …..[Pyrenees] On the mountains I am told, are not only wolves, but bears and a species of the tiger; all of which, in the winter are exceedingly ferocious. From the dread of these, the shepherds constantly drive their flocks of sheep and goats into the villages by night, and when they are feeding on the mountains they are attended by strong dogs with spiked collars…. [Pyrenees] All the dogs in the little villages through which we pass have spiked collars . These are absolutely needful because wolves abound in these regions. In winter they become ravenous and bold, but in the summer they commit frequent ravages among the flocks by night if either the shepherd or the flock are sleeping soundly. [Somiedo]

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And here is one of the spiked collars, a carlanca. More here. (Fapas)