European Brown Bears |
| Cousins of the North American grizzly, used to live in their thousands in the forests and valleys of the Pyrenees but hunting and destruction of their habitat by meant that by the 1980s there were only a handful left. In 1996 brown bears from Slovenia were introduced to the area to try and encourage a population increase but, even now, the species remains endangered and in 2004 a bear, believed by environmentalists to be the very last native female Pyrenees bear, was shot by a hunter. |
 |
Lynx |
| The lynx still survives in the French Pyrenees and probably also on the Spanish side of the range, despite fears that it had become extinct. Lynx are big cats and have short tails and characteristic tufts of black hair on the tip of the ears and large paws for walking on snow. They are mainly nocturnal and are very good tree climbers. Their numbers dropped dramatically following the wipe out of their main prey, rabbits, due to myxomatosis. |
 |
Bearded Vultures |
| One of the rarest raptors in Europe. They live on a diet that is 90% bone marrow. They will drop large bones from a height to crack them to get smaller pieces. Its old name of Ossifrage (or Bone Crusher) relates to this habit. Live tortoises are also dropped in similar fashion to crack them open. Their wingspan is up to 3m. Approximately 100 breeding pairs exist in Europe today, mostly in the Pyrenees. |
 |
