Forest ranger arrested in Spain over suspected poisoning of brown bear in Pyrenees

(File image) The bear had been brought to Spain from Slovenia as part of a reintroduction programme

Credit: Marco Secchi/Getty Images Europe

A forest ranger has arrested in the Spanish Pyrenees in connection with the mysterious death of a six-year-old male brown bear called Cachou, whose demise was initially explained away as the result of a fight with a rival, but which is now being investigated by a local judge as a possible case of poisoning.  

The body of Cachou was found on April 9 at the bottom of a steep slope in the Aran valley, close to the border with France. The rangers who found the corpse described wounds consistent with the theory that Cachou had been in a fight with a rival bear before plunging to his death, and this was the explanation made public by the Aran Council local authority.  

Environmentalists, however, doubted this version of events and pointed to the “grimacing” shape of Cachou’s mouth as a sign that the bear could have been poisoned, something they said was particularly plausible because the animal had become controversial with local farmers as he had developed a taste for livestock, devouring four mares and a foal in previous weeks.    

The ranger, who has not been named but reportedly had been employed by Aran Council shortly before the death of Cachou, was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of having poisoned the bear, a protected species with the penalty for harming or killing such an animal ranging between six months and two years in prison.  

“It’s as if a policeman had robbed the Bank of Spain,” Joan Vázquez, spokesman for Ipcena, one of several environmental NGOs that have pressed for a full investigation, told the newspaper El País.  

Aran Council released a short statement confirming that one of its employees had been arrested and that it was offering full cooperation with the investigating judge.  

After a series of complaints about Cachou, a bear of Slovenian origin and part of a reintroduction scheme in the Pyrenees, Catalonia’s regional government had classified the animal as a problem predator and was considering an operation to transfer him elsewhere.  

Last autumn Catalan authorities left Cachou the carcass of a dead horse treated with fungicide in the hope that he would scavenge the meat and be deterred from further attacks on livestock.