The flora and fauna adventure> Forests and animals

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alt_route The bear of Fort Vauban in Seyne-les-Alpes

Vauban, on the orders of Louis XIV, erected the citadel of Seyne-les-Alpes which, completed in 1699, includes the medieval Grande Tour and fits into the city walls. Deep in the fort there is, in a cell, a work by Mark Dion: a large European brown bear (ursus arctos).

This work fits perfectly into the history of the Fort and the surrounding territory where more than a hundred years ago, man hunted bears. Fear, ignorance, the inability to cohabit are the causes of bear hunting and therefore its disappearance from the French Alps. The last bear in the French Alps was killed in 1936, in Saint-Martin-en-Vercors (Drôme Prealps).

To find out more, check out the "Bears" thematic sheet.

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The Bears
Deforestation has led to the disappearance of sensitive species found at the edge of these vegetation zones.

This was probably the case with the brown bear: the last of the French Alps was killed in 1936, in Saint-Martin-en-Vercors (Drôme Prealps). Names such as the Combe de l'Ours (above Saint-Étienne-les-Orgues) and the Pas de l'Ours (Châteauneuf-Miravail) attest to its past presence in the Alpes de Haute Provence.