Steve Cracknell

Conic — The Shepherd and the Bear

If you are interested in what shepherds think about bears, do go and see Max Keegan's magnificent film, The Shepherd and the Bear. #naturewriting. www.conic.film/films/bear

Brebis tuées, "bénéfice du doute" : comment l'État indemnise les éleveurs face au risque de l'ours dans les Pyrénées En Ariège on sait combien la cohabitation entre l’homme, ses troupeaux et notamment l’ours est difficile. En 2025, près de 300 attaques de prédateurs ont été recensées et ont fait l’objet d’indemnisat...

The return of #bears to the Pyrenees is still controversial. Nearly 300 attacks were recorded last year. #naturewriting. france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/occitanie/ar...

'One of the most successful wildlife comeback stories': The Alps lost its vultures - then it got them back Decades after its release into the wild, a super-ageing, bone-crunching vulture called Balthazar reveals a major conservation success.

Another #rewilding success. As the article says, bearded #vultures are returning to the Alps. In the Pyrenees, population growth has also been spectacular, with over 1000 now. #naturewriting www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Céline Perrard (centre) with the ourses à paillettes [female bears with glitter] in Prats-de-Mollo before the 2026 bear festival.

Yes, as Blake says, there is a tension around the roles of women. But what the Cournonterral event emphasises, with its exclusion of tourists is that the festival is primarily about local identity. The Prats-de-Mollo women say the same thing. Let's leave them to it.

Fête de l'ours à Prats de Mollo 2026 YouTube video by pyreneanway

This year I talked to the Ourses à paillettes [female bears with glitter] in Prats-de-Mollo about identity, MeToo, and fun. youtu.be/XboLzy9VsUM

Andorra, where the bear is female In most folklore, the bear is male. Not so in Andorra.

By the way, in neighbouring Andorra, the bear has always been female. The scenario is very different. www.wildingthepyrenees.com/andorra-wher...

Céline Perrard, here dressed in sheepskin with her face covered in soot and oil. She represents the wild, a bear confronting a hunter. A young man looks on, anxiously.

But, keep in mind that carnivals are transgressive, otherwise they are mere spectacles, like Venice, distanced from the locals. In the case of these Pyrenean festivals there is a moral stance: at the end, the bears are symbolically tamed to reveal the man (and now woman) beneath all this savagery.

Attack of the badger-men: can women find a place in the violent and wine-soaked carnivals of southern France? At the start of Lent, men dressed as rampaging creatures pursue women through medieval villages. The families who maintain these traditions are sceptical of change, but increasingly female revellers w...

Good to see Daniella Blake’s article in @theguardian.com. I didn’t know about Cournonterral and the badger-men but have been to the Pyrenean bear festivals many times. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

‘A beaver blind date’: animals given freedom to repopulate Cornish rivers Release into Helman Tor reserve marks historical first for keystone species hunted to extinction in UK 400 years ago

Great news amidst all the gloom. There have been a lot of beaver releases but these wild releases are really significant in England – finally we are giving this life-giving animal the right to roam. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Not just jolly folklore, not just fossilised World Heritage, the Prats-de-Mollo bear festival is alive and kicking. Women used to be relegated to minor roles. Now, they are arriving in force. More tomorrow.

I was a bit busy yesterday, so today let's fully appreciate the fabulous news that brightened up a drizzly Monday! Great to see this #rewilding progress gaining momentum. Congratulations @cornwallwildlifetrust!

By Bernard Landgraf - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41335

Spectacular return of otters in France! Between 2009 and 2023, their range increased by 40%. #rewilding #naturewriting. www.inee.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/...

Useful summary here.

#bear sightings in the #Pyrenees are still rare, but do happen, as this video shows. #naturewriting

Ours mâle et femelle sur une falaise herbeuse, dans les #Pyrénées.

Quelles belles images! Témoignage d’une rencontre insolite avec un couple d’ours, Pyrénées – juin 2025, par Loan Schwab, jeune photographe animalier https://paysdelours.com/fr/temoignage-dune-rencontre-insolite-avec-un-couple-dours-pyrenees-juin-2025/

Yes, wolves are indeed a proxy, but does there have to be a conflict? When I was young, some time ago, farmers were considered the guardians of the countryside. Was it agribusiness that killed the farmer?

Following the relaxation of EU rules, France has increased authorised #wolf kills from 19% to 21%. The wolf population is stable, as is the number of attacks but no one is satisfied, neither ecologists nor farmers. #rewilding

A Eurasian lynx reclines leisurely on a moss-covered rock, surrounded by a forest of tall trees.

Slovenia is smaller and more densely populated than Scotland. But despite its small size and relatively populous countryside, it's home to nearly 1,000 brown bears, over 120 wolves and a growing population of around 50 reintroduced lynx.

I discovered (or rediscovered, I’m not sure which) Peter Pan recently as a prologue to reading ‘The Adventures of Mary Darling’. So weird, like the Alice books. ‘The Adventures’ is shaping up well.

A reminder - before Trump, MAGA, Musk and Fox rewrote history - that this is what the entire country agreed had happened five years ago today:

As @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social explains so eloquently, the world is owned by the fossil-fuel rich. Many wars have been fought to maintain or extend that power. This makes renewable energy an indispensable prerequisite for a more peaceful future. Bring it on!

OF THE EMPIRE We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

Ever relevant, this poem by Mary Oliver, especially today.

Link to book website: www.wildingthepyrenees.com

In 2025, 209 pairs or trios were recorded across the Pyrenean range, with 50 young fledged. In the Alps, bearded vultures occupy 118 territories; 68 young have taken flight. Source: www.lpo.fr/media/read/4...

More on this scavenger in my book "The Implausible Rewilding of the Pyrenees".

Bearded vulture perched on a rock, with head and neck a deep red, coloured by bathing in iron-rich springs. 📷 © G&T Nicaise

Very good news for #rewilding🪶
The bearded #vulture is nesting again in the Pyrenees and elsewhere. Thanks to #reintroduction (18 this year) and the work carried out with mountain communities, this “bone-breaker” is clearly making a comeback. 📷 © G&T Nicaise

Blue skies in Yarm, Yorkshire today.

On my French bluesky, I have been gathering together text and pictures from the translation of my #rewilding book. The only problem is that I have hardly any followers to take note of them...

I’m posting extracts and pictures from the French translation of my #rewilding book over the next few days…

Intermarché - Conte de Noël YouTube video by Intermarché

I’m intrigued by this French supermarket advert. It is quite extraordinary coming from a country that is ambivalent about wolves, sceptical about vegans and has pretty much forgotten how to cook from basic ingredients. Can anyone explain it to me?

Dip?