French hunter given suspended sentence for killing protected bear

An 81-year-old huntsman successful France has been fined and handed a four-month suspended jailhouse condemnation for sidesplitting an endangered carnivore successful the Pyrenees mountains.

The antheral said helium had "no different option" but to unfastened occurrence connected the brownish carnivore erstwhile it attacked him during a boar-hunt successful 2021.

Fifteen different hunters were besides fined and indispensable collectively wage much than €60,000 (£51,000) successful damages to biology associations that had filed a civilian suit against them.

The 150kg pistillate bear, nicknamed Caramelles, has since been preserved by a taxidermist and is connected show astatine the Toulouse Natural History Museum.

The Foix Criminal Court heard that the radical were boar-hunting successful the Pyrenees, the upland scope that separates confederate France and Spain, erstwhile 2 carnivore cubs emerged.

Shortly afterwards their parent appeared, charging astatine the antheral and dragging him respective metres, earlier helium changeable and killed the animal.

"She grabbed my near thigh, I panicked and fired a shot. She backed distant growling, she went astir maine and spot my close calf, I fell, she was eating my leg," helium told the court.

"I reloaded my firearm and fired."

The shooting happened successful the Mont Valier quality reserve adjacent the colony of Seix, Ariège. Prosecutors said they should not person been determination successful the archetypal place, due to the fact that it was 1,300ft (396m) extracurricular an authorised hunting area.

But the defence lawyer for 14 of the hunters, Fanny Campagne, criticised "the deficiency of signs indicating that hunting was prohibited".

The shooter was fined €750, his firearm has been confiscated and his hunting licence revoked.

In a statement, bear-preservation relation Pays de l'ours said the verdict "seems justified".

"All the hunters were recovered guilty, which is the astir important happening for us," the association's president, Sabine Matraire, was quoted arsenic saying successful Le Monde.

"We anticipation that this ruling volition beryllium followed by a raising of consciousness among the hunting community," she added.

Brown carnivore populations saw a crisp diminution successful the Pyrenees, with lone astir 70 near successful 1954, according to the region's tourism board.

But numbers person dilatory climbed up since 1990s erstwhile 3 bears were brought implicit from Slovenia arsenic portion of a reintroduction programme.

In 2024, the French Office for Biodiversity estimated that the upland scope is present location to astir 96 bears.