Cordillera Cantabrica. Northwest of Spain. Castilla y León ranger records two brown bears at their mating time just a few days ago. Not such impressive images if those bears were not some of the few which still remain in Spain. In the late eighties-early nineties their cousins in the Pyrenees almost became extinct (reintroduced afterwards from Slovenia) and there were just 70-80 of them in the Cantabrian Mountains as keepers of their Iberian genetic origin. There didnt seem to be many expectations for their survival either. After 25 years of working on improving their habitats and social recognition, nowadays the Cantabrian bears have doubled their numbers without reintroductions and have started reaching areas where they just remainded in folk traditions and childrens lullabies. There is still a long way for them to be removed from the endangered species list, but a glimpse of light starts shining at the end of the dark tunnel they have had to go through.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 21:05:34 +0000