Boutxy
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Boutxy is a male brown bear born in 1997 in the Pyrenees, son of Pyros and Mellba.
Biography
[edit]Mellba is a pregnant female bear aged five years and weighing 98 kg (216 lb) when she was captured in the Medved hunting reserve in Slovenia on 5 June 1996 at 5:56 in the morning. She was examined, equipped with a collar for geolocation, and then released the next morning in Melles (Haute-Garonne), 18 days after another female, Ziva, and 11 months before the male Pyros, who were captured and released under the same conditions and in the same places.[1]
Mellba gave birth to three cubs during the winter of 1996–1997. One of them, named Medved, died at the beginning of July 1997.[2] The other two were a female, Caramelles, and Boutxy. These two surviving cubs were named after communes in the region participating in the bear reintroduction: Melles and Boutx,[3] both located in Haute-Garonne. Medved's name literally means "honey eater" in Slovenian, i.e., "bear".[3]
On the morning of 27 September 1997, in Bezins-Garraux (Haute-Garonne), a hunter was lying in wait for wild boar, hidden under a fir tree below a ridge line. Mellba, accompanied by her two cubs, probably did not detect the human due to the terrain configuration and passed near the hunter. Surprised, she charged the hunter the first time but stopped five or six meters from him. The cubs then moved away. Mellba made another charge, much closer, and the hunter, in self-defense, shot Mellba and killed her when she was only three meters away from him.[2]
In 2009, Boutxy was spotted early in the year by the Bear Team in the eastern part of the Pyrenean bear territory, covering parts of Ariège, Aude, and the Pyrénées-Orientales,[4] then he disappeared, which likely indicates his death[5] · .[6] His attacks on herds stopped in the spring of 2009. Given his history as a problem bear, rumors spread that he had been killed. An investigation was initiated by the public prosecutor in Ariège. The gendarmes and canine teams searched for Boutxy, and about thirty people from the pastoral community were questioned, but no trace of Boutxy was found.[7] The investigation did not yield any results, but according to Le Monde:
it seems certain that the bear known as Boutxy, a 200 kg (440 lb) giant with a ferocious appetite, is among the victims of poaching
.[8]
References
[edit]- ^ Quenette 2000, p. 25.
- ^ a b Quenette 2000, p. 23.
- ^ a b "Le nom des ours". Pays de l'ours..
- ^ Rapport Ours brun 2009.
- ^ Rapport Ours brun 2010.
- ^ Rapport Ours brun 2011.
- ^ Gauthey 2009.
- ^ Potet 2013.