A French court on Tuesday, May 6, handed a four-month suspended prison sentence to an 81-year-old hunter for killing an endangered female bear that had attacked him in the Pyrénées mountains in 2021.
The defendant said he had no choice but to open fire when a brown bear attacked him while he was boar-hunting in the mountain range separating France and Spain, in an incident that sparked fierce criticism from environmental associations.
The court also revoked the hunting licences of 15 other defendants who participated in the hunt and fined them. In addition, all 16 defendants will have to collectively pay more than €60,000 ($68,000) to the environmental groups that brought the civil suit.
During the March trial in Foix in southern France, the prosecution said that the main defendant and 15 other hunters should not have been in the Mont Valier nature reserve in the first place. Defense lawyer Charles Lagier had argued that all the defendants should be acquitted, saying that the hunter killed the bear because he had "no other option."