The French hunter gave a suspended sentence to kill

A 81 -year -old fisherman was fined in France and delivered a four -month prison sentence for killing endangered bear in the Brans Mountains.

The man said that he “has no other option” but to open fire on the brown bear when he attacked him while searching for the pig in 2021.

Fifteen of other fishermen have been fined and must collectively pay more than 60,000 euros (51,000 pounds) as compensation for environmental societies that filed a civil lawsuit against them.

Since then, the 150 -kg bear, known as a mummification, has been preserved, and is displayed at the Toulouse Museum of Natural History.

The Foix Criminal Court heard that the group was hunting the pig in the Brans Mountains, a mountain range separating southern France and Spain, when two of the cubs appeared.

Shortly after that, their mother appeared, accusing the man and pulling him several meters, before he shot the animal and killed.

He told the court: “I grabbed the left thigh, I felt panic and fired a bullet. I retracted the waste, went around and placed in the right leg, and fell, and she was eating my legs.”

“I re -downloaded my junior and shot.”

Fire in the Mont Valier Nature Reserve near the village of Seix, Ariège. Prosecutors said that they should not be in the first place, because it was 1300 feet (396 meters) outside the approved fishing area.

But the defense lawyer for 14 fishermen, as Campani, criticized “the lack of signs indicating that hunting is prohibited.”

The 750 -euro shooter was fined, his rifle was confiscated and his fishing license was canceled.

In a statement, the Association for Preserving the Bear said the referee “seems justified.”

“All fishermen were condemned, which is the most important thing for us,” it quoted the president of the association, Sabine Mateer, as saying in Le Monde.

“We hope that this ruling will follow a set of awareness among the fishing community,” she added.

The population of the brown bear witnessed a sharp decrease in the Brans Mountains, with only about 70 remaining in 1954, According to the Tourism Council in the region.

But the numbers have risen slowly since the 1990s when three bears were brought in from Slovenia as part of the re -submission program.

In 2024, The French Office for Biological Diversity You can now the mountain chain is home to about 96 bear.