摘要：
    随着栖息在比利牛斯山脉的本地熊日益濒临灭绝，在法国政府的资助下，该国一家动物保护组织准备于8月底赴斯洛文尼亚考察明春引进5只母熊的计划。但该计划却遭到靠饲养山羊为生的山区牧民们的强烈反对。
    With the brown bear nearly extinct in the Pyrenees, France plans to import five females from Slovenia next spring. Sheep herders are not thrilled.

    随着栖息在比利牛斯山脉的本地熊日益濒临灭绝，在法国政府的资助下，该国一家动物保护组织准备于8月底赴斯洛文尼亚考察明春引进5只母熊的计划。但该计划却遭到靠饲养山羊为生的山区牧民们的强烈反对。

    据《纽约时报》8月29日报道，阿兰·雷内斯是这家动物保护组织的负责人，该组织活动的目的是使在比利牛斯山区栖息的熊的种群数量得到恢复。上世纪90年代中期，由于当地人口的不断增长和狩猎活动的增加，本地熊的数目下降到可怜的十几只。1996年当地曾从斯洛文尼亚引进两只熊，但其中一只于第二年被人猎杀。本次引进母熊行动再次引起当地牧民的抗议，一位在这里世代养羊的牧民米鲁甚至认为这将是一场灾难。

    米鲁家的羊群在今年6月时曾遭到熊的攻击，被咬死和受惊失散的山羊总数达180只。尽管政府很快以高于市场的价格对其进行了补偿，但当地150名牧民还是借着环法自行车赛的机会组织起来，在赛程沿线高举写满“我们才是濒危物种！”的标语牌。此后，法国政府搁置了在该地区放养熊的计划。面对几乎与当地人口一样多的58万头山羊，政府的行动开始变得谨慎起来。

    牧民们的担心也许不是多余的。来自新西兰的廉价羊羔正对当地牧业造成严峻的挑战，曾经提供了大量就业岗位的本地制铝工厂也被生产效率更高的加拿大铝业公司兼并。“本地牧民的日子本来就够艰难的了，就不要再添乱了。”当地大多数政治家都这样认为。在这种背景下，雷内斯还要从国外引进熊的计划无疑面对着巨大的压力。

    但雷内斯对自己的做法毫不动摇。他认为，尽管在当地逐渐“人化”的自然环境中，熊不再是其中必不可缺的一环，但它们的存在是当地环境整体状况的重要标志。“就生态学来讲，熊也许可有可无，但它们对保持人与自然间的平衡有着重要意义。”他说。 　

    关于如何保持人与熊之间的“和平共处”， 雷内斯认为，“关键是要使牧民学会保护自己的羊群”。他表示，由于熊是胆小易受惊的动物，通常情况下依靠号角声就可以让它们躲开。雷内斯为此印刷了大量小册子，向牧民介绍如何更好地用政府的补贴来添置牧羊犬等，以减少类似米鲁家羊群被熊攻击的事件的发生。

    去年11月时，让熊“回家”的运动曾一度在法国兴起。当时，一只名叫卡内勒的母熊被猎杀，它是仅存的几只本地熊之一。卡内勒的死不仅使熊保护人士士气大振，也深深触动了整个社会的神经。法国总统希拉克甚至发表讲话，称母熊被猎杀是“法国乃至整个欧洲生物多样性的巨大损失”。

    法国政府将为雷内斯的这次引进母熊的计划埋单，购买一只母熊的平均费用在7500欧元左右。

    “（对熊的抵触）实际上是精神和文化层面的问题。”雷内斯说。他坚信熊终有一日会回到这片曾经的家园里。

    （国际在线独家资讯 何晓鸿）

本稿件为国际在线专稿，媒体转载请注明稿件来源和译者姓名。

    With the brown bear nearly extinct in the Pyrenees, France plans to import five females from Slovenia next spring. Sheep herders are not thrilled. Alain Reynes planned a late August trip to Slovenia to shop for bears.

    Some of the farmers up around this Pyrenean hamlet probably wish he would stay there. Mr. Reynes is president of an organization whose aim is to restore the population of bears, now near extinction, in the Pyrenees mountains, which separate Spain and France. The French delegation to Slovenia is seeking five female bears to be let free in the mountains above Arbas next spring.

    Mr. Reynes's adversaries are local people who raise sheep in the high mountain passes, where the rich vegetation and steep slopes provide the nourishment and exercise necessary to produce particularly delectable lamb. It is especially delectable, the farmers point out, to bears.

    The mountain sheep are "smaller in size, but their meat has more flavor," said Jean Pierre Mirouz, 39, a fireplug of a man and the fourth generation of his family in this business.

    He lost 180 sheep in June after an attack by a bear stampeded his herd. More bears, he said in the kitchen of his mountain farmhouse, would be "a catastrophe."

    The dispute over the bears injects one more note of tension into a region already fraught with problems. Mr. Mirouz's lamb faces competition from cheaper lamb from New Zealand.

    Local industry is often inefficient and costly. A big aluminum plant of the Pechiney group that once provided jobs is being closed now that the company has been taken over by Alcan of Canada.

    The drive to return bears to the Pyrenees goes back a decade or so. By the mid-1990's, the number of native brown bears, diminished by human population growth and hunting, had dwindled to about a dozen. Then in 1996, two Slovenian bears, Mellba and Ziva, were transported to France and let free to roam the Pyrenees. The program suffered a setback in September 1997 when a teen-age hunter shot and killed Mellba.

    To hear Mr. Reynes, 38, tell it, the survival of bears in the Pyrenees is tantamount to a litmus test of the region's overall environmental health. "Ecologically, the bear is not indispensable," he said. But the region requires, he added, "an equilibrium of man and nature."

    The bears don't come cheap. The average price, depending on age and size, is about 7,500 euros, or about $9,200. The French government will foot the bill, though in some cases bears are given as presents, as a diplomatic gesture, from state to state.

    Mr. Reynes points to a regional survey earlier this year in which 68 percent replied that they favored more bears as an economic asset. The resistance, he says, is a "psychological problem, a cultural problem."