Two bears killed in traffic accidents in the province of León in less than two weeks: a bear hit on August 18 and a bear killed by the same cause on the 28th. This is the provisional balance for the month of August tragic for the population of this protected species in an area of ??special importance, since it is a link or connectivity between the eastern and western bear subpopulations on the Cantabrian ledge of the Iberian Peninsula.
Agents from the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard and environmental technicians from the Council of Castile and Leon removed the corpse of an eight-month-old bear cub on the 28th. The lifeless body appeared hours earlier at kilometer 111.200 of the AP-66, in the municipality of Soto i Amío (Leon).
The body was transferred to the Junta Wildlife Recovery Center in Valladolid for necropsy. This is the second bear that has lost its life due to a run-over in just ten days in the province of Leon, since on August 18 a bear, also a young specimen, was found dead, run over at kilometer point 168.5 of the CL-626, between the provinces of León and Palencia.
And now the big question. What happened? The researchers keep several lines of inquiry open and remain silent on the facts, but naturalists remember that the presence of bears near roads in León and Palencia is not an unusual occurrence. Motorists should use extreme caution in these cases and not chase the animals, even at low speed (there are recordings on social networks that show that this is not always the attitude).
In summer, plantigrades may move closer to urban environments in search of food. Urban environment, roads and vehicles are synonymous. It is no longer a question of bears being seen at the port of La Magdalena, in Murias de Paredes, a mountain pass that joins the Leonese regions of Omaña and Laciana, at 1,400 meters above sea level. A driver chased one of these animals for hundreds of meters. While an adult specimen can reach speeds that seem incompatible with its size, this is not the case with young specimens. And the two bears hit in a span of ten days were young and were at lower altitudes…
Time and the researchers will tell what happened, but the Ós Bru Foundation reminds us of the need to be cautious in case we find an animal of these characteristics and to provide it with escape routes. And they should never be chased.
