If it isn't bears, it's wolves making news in France this last week. First, the bears. You may remember reading here a long enough time ago that a commune in the Pyrenees, mourning the disappearance on its side of the mountain of the native bears (Spain still had some number), brought from Slovenia a female bear, to be followed by others. Well, that first bear was pregnant at the time and about seven months ago gave birth to three cubs. The tragedy is about her, called, in the press anyway, Mellba. Yes, two ls. Last Saturday she was killed by a young hunter, who was out after wild boar.
He was at a fixed position, waiting for the boars to come, when Mellba and her three cubs came upon him. The cubs ran away, but, according to his statements to the press, the mother came on towards him with her mouth open. He tried to shoo her off with his arms, but she still came on. Finally, he said, when she was a metre-and-a-half from him, he had to fire. Newspapers give the calibre of the bullet as 7.66 mm. Mellba, killed instantly, was left there in the hope that her cubs might return to the body. They are still too young to survive on their own, it is said. By the next night two of them had been located, and by now, maybe, the third.
On arrival or before, Mellba had been fitted out with a collar which emitted a radio signal, but it went lost. So the authorities hadn't been able to keep track of her. Another imported Slovenian bear, Pyros by name, has also lost his collar, but it (the collar) was found. Huge difference in the weights of the bears. Mellba was 98 kilos when released in June 1996, and four years of age. Pyros weighs 235 kilos. The introduction of these bears into the Ariege region of France was under a EU programme LIFE, but wasn't popular with everyone. Sheepowners, about 200 of them, have protested vigorously; but tourism or local pride won out. Some of the bears roamings cross into Spain.
Another introduction which does not meet with everyone's approval is that of wolves into the Mercantour National Park in eastern France, high up in the mountains above Nice. Shepherds claim they have lost 2,000 sheep. But a lot of these wolves just wandered in from Italy, surely?
The only foreign animal invasion in Ireland of recent times that comes to mind is the mink. It kills fish. But not so much has been heard of it in the past year or so.