Bears in Central Europe

Earlier this year, I blogged excitedly about the news that a brown bear had been spotted in the wild in Switzerland for the first time in over a hundred years. (It was on my old blog and I'm afraid I can't be bothered trawling through the archives to link back to it).

Well, it turns out that there have been bear resettlement projects going on in Italy, Austria and France for some years now, with varying degrees of success. This was news to me, but I find it both fascinating and exciting.

This week, Der Spiegel's English website has an excellent article about the bear resettlement programmes and the tensions between bears and humans in central Europe, entitled The Great Bear Comeback. It's long, but it's both well written and well translated, and I recommend it as an interesting and informative read.

Check out The Great Bear Comeback at Spiegelonline.

bears
nature