Livestock
The Pyrenees and its landscape cannot be understood without livestock, an ancestral activity that has been adapted to the socio-economic changes that have occurred and that has helped to shape the character of these regions. Each corner, each valley, have their livestock stamp, which gives them a unique authenticity.
Also, the herds are not alone in the mountain, but they share space and a resource with the wild fauna, and sometimes, this coexistence is complicated. For this reason, with the PirosLife project, a series of measures are deployed that must allow to reduce to a minimum levels the damage of the brown bear on the extensive mountain livestock.
These measures consist of grouping the small herds of each owner into large herds, to make viable the implementation of protection measures of greater scope and effectiveness. They emphasize the hiring of shepherds, the construction of shepherd huts in the areas where there are groups with continuous presence of bear, the placement of electrified fences to protect the sheep at night, and the promotion and distribution of dogs to protect herds.
On the other hand, the students of the School of Shepherds of Catalonia do practices with the grouped herds. In this way, they learn the protection measures that must be applied, as well as how to graze and behave in areas with brown bear presence.
