The death of Caramelles: the 16 hunters finally convicted!
Our thoughts go out to Caramelles as the hunters who killed her are finally found guilty. They knowingly entered a restricted hunting area and caused her death in November 2021. Justice has finally been served for this mother, whose death left behind two orphans. But what does the future hold for bears in the Pyrenees?
Two days of trial on 18 and 19 March: unprecedented for an animal protection case! Nothing less was sufficient to try the 16 hunters responsible for Caramelles’ death. Their successive acts of recklessness and laxity led to the irreparable: the death of a bear, killed during an illegal hunt in the heart of a hunting and wildlife reserve.
An invasion of the territory of the bear and her cubs
On 20 November 2021, all the signs told the hunters that they were in a restricted area. A place where everyone knew that Caramelles had taken up residence with her cubs. The summer before this disaster, tourists flocked to the area. How can the culprits claim not to have known the whereabouts of this attentive mother?
And yet, blithely flouting the few rules governing their leisure activity, they encroached on her territory. The shooter who found himself face to face with the bear should not have been there. Through his recklessness, he put this family in danger, but also himself. Caramelles wounded him while trying to protect her babies. She died from her injuries, just like her mother Melba, in Haute-Garonne 28 years ago. Today, the 16 poachers have been convicted of deliberately hunting animals in a reserve.
This is an exemplary and coercive decision, calling for hunters to show more responsibility
On 6 May 2025, the Court recognised the successive negligence of the defendants that caused this tragedy. The man who shot Caramelles was given a four-month suspended prison sentence. His hunting licence has been temporarily revoked, as have those of two other defendants. All the others were sentenced to fines, and some had their weapons confiscated. We expected nothing less and hope that the law will be firm with those who harm bears, as the Spanish courts recently demonstrated by sentencing a hunter to prison for similar offences.
The defendants, who know no shame, are going to appeal. We will be meeting them again to defend Caramelles.
It is time to leave bears in peace, on both sides of the Pyrenees, as called for by 8 out of 10 French people (Ipsos/One Voice survey, November 2024). The State, conspicuously absent from the trial, must take action to protect those who inhabit our mountains, and whom it itself has “reintroduced”. The persecution must stop, whether it be scare shots, poaching or malicious hunters.