Arrest made in Spain in Pyrenees bear Cachou killing

Police in northeastern Spain said on Friday they arrested one person in connection with the death of the six-year-old brown bear Cachou.

Cachou was found dead in Val D’Aran on the 9th of April in the Spanish Pyrenees. An autopsy was done in Barcelona, but the cause of death was not made public.

A year before he died, Cachou had gotten a GPS collar. That’s how rangers discovered he was dead. He hadn’t moved for days.

“We can confirm that a person has been arrested in connection with the death of the bear,” a spokesman for the regional Mossos D’Esquadra police said, without giving further details.

In August 2019, the local authorities in Val d’Aran wanted the young male bear to be removed from the area, blaming him for killing farm animals.

This year, two bears in the Pyrenees have been killed, Cachou in April and another bear in June. In June, the body of a five-year-old bear was discovered close to the Spanish border. He was shot to death. This happened after farmers had been complaining about sheep killings.

Close to extinction, the brown bear was reintroduced to the Pyrenees in the early 1990s. The animals were brought in from Slovenia. There are about 50 of them today, but their presence has caused tension with animal farmers.