The hunter, who was chasing the wild boar, was assisted by a High Mountain gendarmerie team and was immediately taken to a local hospital “in critical condition”, the statement said.
A spokesman for the French gendarmerie was unable to confirm to CNN whether the hunter had shot the bear, although a statement from the prefecture of Ariegue read that the gendarmes had found “a bear carcass under the spot where the victim was killed.” was found, which could have given recognition to the thesis. Of an accident involving the encounter between man and animal.”
A judicial inquiry has been initiated to probe the circumstances of the accident.
The largest carnivore in Europe, brown bears almost disappeared from France until the French government launched a program in 1996 to reintroduce them to the Pyrenees mountains. That year, French officials began importing bears of the same species from Slovenia as the Pyrenean bears and released them. in the southwestern mountain range.
According to a report by the Brown Bear Network, part of the French Office for Biodiversity, there were 64 brown bears in the Pyrenees last year, all descendants of Slovenian bears going back years.
Their presence causes tension with local farmers, as they pose a threat to their livestock. The report shows Ariege is the French department with the largest numbers of bears, and where the most bear-related damage has been measured in the past year – with 329 bear-related attacks in 2020.