Image by FOP
A young brown bear has been run over and killed in Leon in El Bierzo. This is the first confirmed case of bear being killed by a vehicle (a lorry) in Spain. The incident took place along the A16 dual carriageway (autovia). Experts from the Fundación Oso Pardo (FOP) are trying to find where the bear entered the autovia as it is fenced. According to the Fundación Oso Pardo, although bears are not common in El Bierzo, it is an area of dispersion from the nearby Alto Sil which supports a small but rising breeding population of brown bears, and so the bear was probably from this latter area. This bear formed part of the much smaller eastern population of Cantabrian bears with at most 30 individuals and so the loss of one is of some concern.