SAVE SPAIN'S BEARS

A business consortium, backed by regional government, is threatening the continued, precarious survival of the Cantabrian brown bear or Oso pardo (Ursus arctos), already catalogued as in danger of extinction in Spain. An unsustainable project to build a ski resort in an important corridor of access for the last remaining bears in the region of the San Glorio pass in the Cordillera Cantabrica mountains of Northern Spain may still be given approval. Spanish law courts recently vetoed a large-scale type of project but a smaller, just as threatening project could still be put forward. Relatively low altitude and regular windy conditions would ensure the need for water-draining, artificial snow machine use. The local population will not get rich on the occasional weekend of piste skiing a year whilst destroying habitat of bear, Iberian wolf, Capercaillie, Marsh fritillary and Apollo butterflies, among others of the area's natural wildlife and beauty - it's main attraction. (This peti... more