According to Fapas, the Trubia valley in Asturias is seeing a slow but sure increase of reproductive female Cantabrian brown bears, the species having almost disappeared completely from this area. In 2004 one female of breeding age was detected. Of the sixteen individual bears identified here in 2007, two were females with cubs. In the next few months it is hoped to confirm the existence of either two or three females that could have produced cubs this year, the first having been photographed this spring by Fapas with her one cub. If their expansion continues at this rate, it is hoped that by 2010 the optimum number of ten breeding females will have been reached leading Fapas to comment that the name of the Trubia valley should be given plural status, Valle de los Osos. The conservation organisation sees this as the first important step towards the subsequent joining together of the two separate Cantabrian brown bear populations, dispersal among Brown bears as a species being a slow process due to the philopatry exhibited by female cubs who choose territory close to their mother’s when they reach reproductive age themselves.
See the Cantabrian brown bear topic at Iberianature forum.
