TRAPS -TERRITORIES OF CANTABRIAN BEARS

The placement traps formed by steel cables, is at the present time the biggest control with which is the population's of bears expansion that inhabits the Cantabrian Mountain range.
Their presence doesn't obey a professional illegal hunt, if not, to a very extended and difficult social habit of eradicating.

At level world many populations of brown bear they face growing threats of loss and fragmentation of the habitat, demographic limitations and loss genetic diversity. In Spain, next to Italy, France and some Asian countries live the threatened populations of brown bears in the world. The transcendence that would have the extinction of the Spanish bears is increased if we consider that they are the only pure representatives of one of the three evolutionary lines of the brown bear in Europe and of the five that seem to exist in the world.

The area of distribution of the species is distributed in four Autonomous Communities: "Asturias", "Cantabria", "Castilla y León" and "Galicia". There are two Cantabrian populations of bears. The Western Population extends for "Asturias", "Castilla y León" and "Galicia", from the "Ancares" Lugo´s country (Galicia), for the West, until the Port "Pajares". It embraces about 2.600 km2, mainly in "Asturias" with near 70% of the surface. The Oriental Population extends for about 2.480 km2, from "Campoo de Suso" (Cantabria), to the East, until the Port of "Vegarada" (Asturias) for the West. It affects "Castilla y León", "Cantabria" and "Asturias". Around 85% of the busy surface it belongs to "Castilla y León".

The Western Population has a superior census to 60 bears and to be beginning recovery. The Oriental Population has 23-25 bears (individualized with genetic techniques), more than double males that of females, a low reproductive index and a high consanguinity.

The two Cantabrian populations of bears are separated by 30-50 km of distance where they accumulate important infrastructures and human activities (mining, freeways, highways, railroad, ski hints, ...). Recent genetic studies confirm the genetic isolation from both populations to those that it suits to try as different conservation units.

The most important threat factors are the death of bears caused by people, the loss and fragmentation of the habitat and the scarce number of copies that it facilitates that it happens the extinction as a result of the chance.

Although the steel knots are placed specifically for the boar, their not controlled capacity to capture any animal and their resistance, they transform him into a mortal trap for small and big bears.

The steel traps are extremely dangerous for the brown bear, to those that can cause the death or serious lesions.

The use of the traps has a lot to do with the fight of the cattlemen against the boar and, in smaller measure, against the deer. Many proprietors not tolerate the damages that both species cause in cultivations and harvest grasslands, and although the damages are reimbursed, they continue arming traps in their abut them of the properties and in the next paths. But the traps are also used for stealthy that look for the meat or the trophy of deer and boars. At the moment it is very difficult that traps with the objective of catching bears. The problem is that the bears are caught in the willing traps for the other mentioned species, in those that can find the death or to drag sequels (loss of members, infections,...) if they are able to be liberated

The drops that the traps cause in the population of bears are important. Between 1980 and 1994, they have registered 36 bear deaths in the Western Population, of those that 13 (36%) they died by traps. In 1997, a youth male was caught in a willing trap for the boars in the border of a grassland; it could be liberated after the warning from some neighbors to the Foundation Brown Bear (FOP, Fundación Oso Pardo). In 1999, you keep of the FOP they find a place with the destroyed vegetation where one dares it had been caught in a knot; it fences they find another willing trap to catch boars. The bear «Cuervo», dead when being captured in the mark of a radiomark program in "Somiedo" ( Asturias), it presented an old wound in one of their paws to a trap. In the course of the pursuit program of you dare with breedings financed by the environment Ministry and developed in cooperation with the Autonomous Communities, lame and wounded copies have been detected, although it is not for sure all the cases can be attributed to the knots: two lame males to those that they lacked part of an extremity., a male with one of the deformed front paws, a lame female of one of their back paws and another female that it perishes to take a knot in their neck.

In the month November 2001, inside the control work and the population's the bears pursuit that is carried out with automatic cameras inside the Natural Park of "Somiedo" in "Asturias", this bear copy, adult, is located the one that he lacks its right hand completely.
Without a doubt, product of the fight to be released of a trap-knot placed by stealthy hunters

The problem is serious and the quantity located traps and retired they give an idea of its magnitude. In the Asturian Regional Reservations of hunt they have retired 1.147 knots, in the period of 1993 at 1998. In only two Regional Limits of hunt of Asturias they retired in the same period 1.523 traps.

In so far in autumn-winter, the patrol cars of the Foundation Brown Bear of "Alto Sil" (León) and of the "Alto Narcea" (Asturias) they have retired near 200 traps. In that same period of time it was denounced to five persons in operations carried out with the Civil Watch's SEPRONA.

It is indispensable, therefore, to have the necessary human support to revise the main areas of bears in a permanent way, so that the absence of traps is guaranteed that can generate risk for the life of the brown bear.

To lose the operative capacity to look for traps, it will suppose a serious risk for the protection of the bears.
The stealthy hunters, far from reducing their activity, look for new capture methods.
During the year 2001 traps have been located formed by strong plastic cords, substituting to the steel cables.

During several years and with the development of the Programs "Life" of the Union European, several teams of workers of the ONGs, Foundation Brown Bear and FAPAS, they worked in a continuous way in the search and eradication of traps in the areas of bears.

Now, it leaves of those teams they have stopped to work with that that the danger for the conservation of the bears, is a real and constant fact, since they lack human resources for the difficult search task and retreat of traps.