Monitoring of Two Small Subpopulations of Brown Bears in the Pyrenees, 1993 to 2014

The brown bear disappeared from the central Pyrenees in the late 1980s but remained in the western Pyrenees in both France and Spain. By 1995, only five to six individuals remained in this population. Augmentation plans were made to restore this population both on the western and central areas. But for socio–political reasons, the reintroduction of bears occurred only in the central area. Three bears (two females and one male) were reintroduced in 1996–1997. In 2006, five more bears (four females and one male) were translocated from Slovenia into the central area of the Pyrenees. This report describes the changing status of the population over 22 years of field monitoring, from 1993 to 2014, and the impact of the two reintroductions on population viability.