Pyrenees National Park (Parc national des Pyrénées)

Pyrenees National Park

 

Location: Hautes-Pyrénées, Pyrénées-Atlantiques Map

Area: 457 km²

 

Description of Pyrenees National Park

The Pyrenees National Park or the Western Pyrenees National Park, created in 1967 by Pierre Chimits, is one of eleven national parks in France, located in the south of the country in the western part of the Pyrenees mountain range, straddling the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées (Occitanie region) and Pyrénées-Atlantiques (Nouvelle-Aquitaine region).

The park aims, through strict regulations, to preserve the beauty of the sites and to protect the plant and animal species threatened with extinction.

The Pyrenees National Park comprises two zones: the central zone, called the "heart of the park" since the law of 2006, and the peripheral zone, called the "optimal adhesion area". The interest of this distinction is the more flexible regulations in the peripheral zone, intended to benefit from investments of an economic, social and cultural order in order to curb the rural exodus and to develop the tourist equipment of the region.

The heart of the park covers an area of 45,707 ha, over 15 municipalities, with a minimum altitude of 1,273 meters and a maximum of 3,298 meters (Le Vignemale). The peripheral zone has an area of 206,352 ha, over 65 municipalities.

Since 1997, part of the Pyrenees National Park, located in the Hautes-Pyrénées, and the Ordesa and Mont-Perdu National Park constitute, with some adjacent Spanish areas, the Pyrénées-Mont-Perdu complex included in the list of the UNESCO World Heritage in respect of natural landscapes and cultural landscapes.

In France, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, the cirques of Gavarnie, Estaubé and Troumouse as well as the wall of Barroude offer particular aspects of this high mountain site. These are cirques of glacial origin, with high steep walls. The development of mid-mountain pastures and high-altitude barns bears witness to an agro-pastoral activity that is still present. Note: the Brèche de Roland, a natural gap forty meters wide and one hundred meters high opening in the cliffs above the Cirque de Gavarnie.

 

History and management

In 1935, the National Society of Acclimatization of France, founded in 1854 and then became the National Society for the Protection of Nature, created the Néouvielle nature reserve, integrated in 1968 into the Pyrenees National Park.

The park was created by decree no. 67-265 of March 23, 1967.

Its headquarters are in Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées), Villa Fould. Built in 1850, this noble brick, stone and wood building was the home of Achille Fould, a great politician of the Second Empire, Minister of Finance then Minister of State alongside Napoleon III. It is located within the Paul Chastellain park, a landscaped park of 2.3 ha with a body of water fed by waterfalls, in the center of Tarbes.

 

Geography

Relief

The Pyrenees National Park extends mainly (60%) in the department of Hautes Pyrenees. It includes, from west to east, the upper Aspe valley and the Pic du Midi d'Ossau reserve, located in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques and in the Hautes Pyrénées department: the Balaïtous peak, the Vignemale massif, the cirques of Gavarnie, Estaubé, Troumouse, Marcadau and the wall of Barroude and ends in the upper Aure valley at the peak of Néouvielle, north-east of Gavarnie.

Leaning against the Spanish border, the Park communicates over more than 100 km with the "Parque Nacional Ordesa y Monte Perdido" (National Park of Ordesa and Mont Perdido, in Spain) as well as with the nature reserves of Néouvielle (2,313 ha) and Ossau.

The Pyrenees Park has 230 altitude lakes and the highest peaks of the French Pyrenees.

 

Wild life

Flora

It is one of the richest in France in terms of the variety of its flora (12% endemic species), it is home to 2,500 superior plant species, more than 200 of which are endemic, including Lapeyrouse's pansy or silver vetch.

 

Wildlife

It is also one of the richest in the variety of its fauna.

It is home to 4,000 animal species, including 250 vertebrates: 1,000 species of beetles, 300 species of butterflies, chamois — the symbol of the park —, 200 species of birds, numerous raptors threatened with extinction such as bearded vultures, Egyptian vultures, the golden eagles. The griffon vulture population. Marmots were introduced from the Alps in 1948. Among the 64 species of mammals that live there, the park is home to a very rare semi-aquatic mammal, the Pyrenean desman, which is almost impossible to observe directly. There are lynx, genets and brown bears, the last of which is of Pyrenean lineage.

These ultimate brown bears of the Pyrenees, males, evolve in the valleys of Aspe and Ossau. In the central Pyrenees, three brown bears from Slovenia were reintroduced - two females in 1996 and a male in 1997 - and have become well acclimatized despite the disappearance of one of the bears in her tail, killed by a hunter during a hunt in 1997. It is to be feared, however, that these releases will not be enough to preserve the Pyrenean brown bear from definitive extinction, because, below thirty individuals, we find ourselves in the presence of a sub-critical population. Moreover, the brown bear is not unanimous in the local population and it is accused of causing damage to the herds.

The Iberian ibex (Capra pyrenaica victoriae), a subspecies of ibex similar to the Pyrenean ibex (officially extinct in 2000), has also been present in the Pyrenees National Park since 2013. In 2020, more than two hundred and fifty ibex occupy the territory of the Pyrenees National Park.

 

Tourism

The Pyrenees National Park and the Néouvielle lakes are a great place for hiking.

There are nearly one million visitors per year (source Observatory of the Hautes Pyrénées 2012) The most visited valleys are, in descending order:
Valley of Luz
Aure Valley and Néouvielle
Cauterets Valley
Ossau Valley
Val d'Azun
Aspe Valley

The most visited tourist sites are, in descending order:
Circus of Gavarnie
Lake Oredon
Cap-de-Long Lake
Gaube lake, Marcadau valley, Spain bridge
Oule Lake
Upper Aspe Valley
Estaing Lake
Lake of Bious-Artigues
Suyen Lake, Tech
Circus of Troumouse
Lutour Valley
Species Valley
Cirque d'Estaubé
Ossoue Valley