Posted on 04/03/2016 7:22:29 AM PDT by tlozo
...In 1997, Pyros was brought from Slovenia to this mountain range on the Spanish-French border to replenish a brown bear population on the verge of extinction. And boy did he ever get the job done. About three-quarters of the nearly 40 bears now roaming the Pyrenees are his offspring, say French and Spanish conservation officials. Pyros stands nearly 7 feet tall on his hind legs and weighs more than 500 pounds. His amorousness has made him a living legend. The lumbering Lothario has mated with at least eight different females, including some of his own offspring... 2012 scientific paper in “Galemys: Spanish Journal of Mammalogy” noted Pyros’s “breeding dominance” represents “a serious handicap.” Excessive inbreeding reduces genetic variation and, over time, leaves an animal population more vulnerable to diseases and deformities, specialists say... Regional and county officials debate whether a younger(brought in) bear can win a mating contest with the acknowledged master. Pyros is about 27 years old, and it is unusual for brown bears older than 30 to survive in the wild, said Santiago Palazón, a wildlife specialist for Catalonia’s regional government. “He’s been hanging on and hanging on and hanging on,” said Mr. Palazón. “But he’s reached the point of dying.”... “He’s superman…a myth,” said Carlos Barrera, the head of the government in Val d’Aran, the heart of Pyros’s turf. For the greater good of the bear community, the only sure solutions are either “killing [Pyros], sterilizing him or returning him to Slovenia,” said Mr. Afonso. Thanks to his virility, Pyros may be the only bear anywhere with his own groupies. Spanish Pyros fans started a Twitter account under his name identifying him as the “father of all the bears.” French public television dubbed him “the stud of the Pyrenees” and a French newspaper likened him to Casanova.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Sounds like they picked the right bear for the job. Too bad they are not this good at everything they do. Party on Pyros!
We spend thousands of years systematically eliminating dangerous predators from our neighborhood, and a generation replacing them.
Lather, rinse, repeat...
Mexican muslim ghetto bear?
And the sounds of dueling banjos echos through the Pyrenees.
New species: Ursus Lazamus.
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