French hunter received a conditional punishment for Kill

An 81-year-old hunter in France was fined and handed over a conditional prison sentence of four months for killing an endangered bear in the Pyrenees mountains.

The man said he had “no other option”, but to open the fire on the brown bear when he attacked him during a boar hunt in 2021.

Fifteen other hunters also received a fine and collectively have to pay more than € 60,000 (£ 51,000) damage to environmental associations that had submitted civil proceedings against them.

The female bear of 150 kg, nicknamed caramelles, has since been preserved by a taxidermist and can be seen in the Toulouse Natural History Museum.

The Foix Criminal Court heard that the group was in the Pyrenees, the mountain range that separates southern France and Spain, when two bear cubs appeared.

Shortly thereafter their mother appeared, rushed to the man and dragged him a few meters before he shot and killed the animal.

“She grabbed my left thigh, I panicked and shot a shot. She started growling backwards, she went around me and bit my right, I fell, she ate my leg,” he told the court.

“I have loaded and fired my gun.”

The shooting happened in the Mont Valier Nature Reserve near the village of Seix, Ariège. Justice officers said they should not have been there in the first place, because it was 1,300 ft (396 m) outside an authorized hunting ground.

But the lawyer of the defense of 14 of the hunters, Fanny Campagne, “criticized” the lack of signs indicating that the hunt was forbidden “.

De Schutter was fined € 750, his gun was seized and his hunting permit was withdrawn.

In a statement, Bear-Convenation Association de l’Ours pays that the verdict seems to be “justified”.

“All hunters were found guilty, which is the most important thing for us,” said the president of the association, Sabine Matraire, in Le Monde.

“We hope that this statement will be followed by an increase in consciousness under the hunting community,” she added.

Brown bear populations saw a sharp fall in the Pyrenees, with only about 70 left in 1954, According to the tourist administration of the region.

But figures have slowly risen since the 1990s when three bears were transferred from Slovenia as part of a reintroduction program.

In 2024, The French office for biodiversity Estimated that the mountain range is now the home of around 96 bears.