WITH wildflowers, streams and tinkling cowbells, the green valleys of the Pyrenees are a vision of pastoral bliss on a May morning. Yet all is not well in this corner of France. Behind the sunny scene lurks a violent dispute over a band of furry residents — the Ursus arctos, or brown bear.

Death threats are circulating in the “bear war” that has erupted over an operation to bolster the dwindling ursine population. The planned arrival of five young adults from Slovenia this spring has caused a revolt by sheep farmers and some local politicians against what they see as a plot by urban bear lovers to put dangerous predators above rural human beings. In good Gallic fashion, the feud is not just about nature versus economics, or the ancient Pyrenean view of bears as enemy or friend. It is fed by old hatreds that give it a dark, irrational aspect.

“It is very, very violent,” said François Arcangeli, the Mayor of the village of Arbas, who has received written murder threats if he pursues his bear campaign. M Arcangeli’s support for bringing in the Slovenian animals and promoting his area as Le Pays de l’Ours (bear country) has made him a hate figure for the anti-bear lobby.

On April 1, protesters locked M Arcangeli into his little mairie, sprayed its walls with animal blood, burnt a bear statue and destroyed his gardens.

“It was frightening,” said M Arcangeli, a socialist and an architect. Ten men await trial.Two young adult bear females arrived from Slovenia and were released in secret after protesters with firecrackers disrupted the ceremony for the first release at Arbas, attended by Nelly Olin, the Environment Minister, on April 25.

Protesters are arriving at a nearby village today after the Paris high court rejected a suit to halt the next releases. Militants are also blocking roads watching for vans bringing the three other bears. Jars containing honey and broken glass have been found in the forest.

President Chirac ordered the bear operation in 2004 after a hunter killed Cannelle, the last native female bear. About 15 animals, partly descended from a 1990s import of Slovenians, roam the mountains that span the Franco-Spanish frontier. The operation is popular with the great majority in the region and France, according to polls.

Experts say the farmers’ fears are unjustified. “There is no animal less dangerous. Bears avoid humans,” said Alain Reynes, a biologist who heads the Arbas bear programme.

A minority of sheep farmers support the bear plan, but most are opposed. Bears cause greater losses than the authorities admit and the Slovenian strain is more aggressive, they say.

A few miles from Arbas, Gérard Duffaut said that farmers are ready to use desperate measures to protect their livelihood. “Something is going to happen that will be more terrible for the environment than just killing the bears,” he said.

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