Pyrenees bear, farmers' foe, killed in road accident

AFP, August, 2007

TARBES, France (AFP) — A Slovenian bear branded public enemy number one by sheep farmers after she was let loose in the French Pyrenees as part of a conservation scheme was killed Thursday in a road accident, police said.

Franska the bear was killed in a nighttime collision with a car, on a mountain expressway around five kilometres (three miles) south of the Roman Catholic shrine of Lourdes, police said.

Local farmers accused Franska -- one of five brown bears introduced to the mountains in southwestern France last year -- of killing as many as 150 sheep and waged a fierce campaign to have her removed from the region.

The four females and one male joined the local population of 14 to 18 brown bears, all that is left of the hundreds that roamed the mountains only a century ago.

Franska was struck by a first car at around 6:00 am (0400 ...