It was a curious call that the Yvelines gendarmes received on Tuesday morning. A cyclist swears to them that he saw, with his own eyes… a bear. According to him, the encounter with the animal took place on the Orgerus road towards Bazainville, a few kilometers from Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines) and Dreux (Eure-et-Loir).
To find out, the military dispatched a patrol to the Houdan sector in search of the plantigrade. According to the young man’s description, he was all black and took refuge in the woods at the sight of him. But on the spot, the gendarmes do not see bearskin…
Especially since the Thoiry zoo, located only ten kilometers away, has no absence among the black bears, or baribal – a specimen weighs on average 150 kg – in semi-freedom in the “America” part of the car safari . “All our bears are at home, no escapes! » confirms the establishment.
And neither the mayor of Orgerus, Jean-Michel Verplaetse, nor local farmers remember seeing such a mammal in the area. Out of conscience, the elected official still dispatched a municipal agent to try to find the animal.
“I told my wife to cycle as fast as possible”
We were able to talk with the man who saw the bear. This 26-year-old cyclist, on a road trip with his wife, between Survilliers (Val-d’Oise) and Brest (Finistère), first thought he saw a wild boar. “It was a big black animal, which was looking for something on the ground,” he explains. When it stood up on its two legs, I understood that it was not a wild boar. »
At that moment, according to him, the animal seemed to be moving towards them. “I told my wife to cycle as fast as possible, and off we went. » If the person concerned swears that it is not a hoax, the gendarmes do not rule out the possibility of confusion.
“People sometimes see things that don’t exist,” comments a soldier. A few years ago, we were informed of a feline in the forest, in the Noisy-le-Roi area. People had taken a photo. It had been an uproar. In the end, it turned out to be a big cat. »
In 2016, a passerby had already said he had seen a bear on the N12, between Bazainville and Houdan. Here again, the gendarmes had mobilized a team but found nothing. More recently, the French Biodiversity Office would have received reports in recent weeks in the Rouen region (Seine-Maritime), without however making any observations, reports 76-. An area located around a hundred kilometers from Yvelines, a distance that such an animal could easily travel.
