Bear's killing prompts court to reconstruct crime scene

High in the Pyrenees, in the Aspe valley, French investigators have carried out a bizarre reconstruction of a crime. For the first time, they have painstakingly detailed a murder scene involving the death of an animal.

On 1 November last year, the entire country was shocked when the last remaining female brown bear of pure Pyrenean stock, 15-year-old Cannelle, was shot dead by a hunter.

President Jacques Chirac deplored the "disaster for the protection of wild species". A criminal investigation into the "destruction of a protected species" was opened.

The hunter, René Marquèze, 68, has always said he fired in self-defence, after the bear attacked his dog. But environmentalists accuse the party of six hunters of deliberately visiting an area known to be occupied by the bear, which had given birth to a a cub three months earlier. Yesterday's reconstruction took four hours to complete, in the presence of an examining magistrate, M. Marquèze and his lawyer, as investigators tried to establish whether M. Marquèze had fired in self-defence, and whether the bear's death could have been avoided.

Cannelle - cinnamon in English - was one of only 15 brown bears believed to remain in the Pyrenees, on the border between France and Spain. The hunters, who were out shooting wild boar, blame the influx of curious hikers into the area where Cannelle had been protected with her cub, for causing her to move on. But ecologists say that she and her cub were simply out looking for new sources of food.

According to the hunters, they were near the village Urdos, at an altitude of 1,200m, when Cannelle rushed at them as they were having a bite to eat. They fired a warning shot into the air, but this was not enough to deter the beast. She lumbered off only after a second shot had been fired. M Marquèze, who was further up the mountainside, heard the shots below and expected to see a wild boar approach. But the animal that emerged was the bear. Cannelle's body was carried by helicopter to the veterinary college at Toulouse, but it was too late to save her.

The animal's death has sparked off a fresh debate on reintroducing the bear to the Pyrenees, which had been decided by France's environment minister, Nelly Olin. Attempts to increase the number of bears - a protected species - by bringing in animals from other areas of Europe have been opposed by cattle and sheep farmers. Many are also local hunters.