A bitter dispute over the re-introduction of bears in the French Pyrenees intensified this week as sheep farmers opposed conservationists’ calls for new females to mate with two lonely male bears.

Bears were re-introduced from Slovenia in the 1990s after hunters all but wiped out France’s native population and the lovelorn males, Canellito and Néré, are the only ones left in the western Pyrenees.

Another 37 have been counted in the central section of the mountain range along the Spanish border.

But conservationists say the two isolated males are unlikely to reach the group and would have to fight dominant males before being able to mate with the females.

The presence of bears in France arouses such strong feelings that farmers allegedly fired warning shots over the heads of government experts sent last year to assess how many sheep the predators had killed.