Alice OUVRIER, CNRS GEODE (UMR 5602), France
Ruppert VIMAL, CNRS GEODE (UMR 5602), France
At a time when nature and culture can no longer be thought of as separate, the return of predators in Europe and particularly in France questions our ability to coexist with the rest of the living beings (Benhammou, 2009; Morizot, 2017). In this perspective, a major issue is to understand how humans and non-humans interact in a given space according to a relationship that is specific to them. Recent work in geography related to the animal question (Bortolamiol et al., 2017; Estebanez et al., 2013) focuses on describing the diversity of interspecific sociabilities within hybrid communities (Lestel et al. 2006). In this context, the PhD thesis presented here focuses on the interactions between bears, ewes and shepherds in the Pyrenees: How does the return of bears to the Pyrenees suggest a new sharing of territory? What are the ins and outs of this coexistence relationship? Through an involved approach, as close as possible to the field issues, our focus is on three mountain pastures in the Ariège. Since 2019, two methodologies are conducted in a complementary way. Interviews with pastoralists as well as direct observation on the field allow us to understand the choices made by the pastoralists while the frequentation of bears is evaluated via the installation of a large grid of camera traps. According to our first results, we show that the spatial and temporal use of the summer pastures by the pastoralists is governed by different criteria such as the forage resource, the topographical constraints or the behavior of the ewes. The presence of the predator interacts with these different issues and complicates the choices made by the shepherd in leading the herd. The bears prefer certain areas and certain periods, but these tendencies are specific to each summer pasture and are difficult to generalize. The protection of the herd is therefore complex and responds to micro-local and temporal factors specific to the space considered.
Mots clés : Human-Wildlife Conflict|Pastoralism|Animal geography|Coexistence|Territory
A103892AO