|
It would have to be, of course, the Alpine ibex, the symbol of the Vanoise National Park. The park is located between the high mountain valleys of the Maurienne and the Tarentaise, and stretches over 200,000 hectares, with elevations of 685 to 3,855 metres. This ungulate, or hoofed animal, was once abundant in the mountainous regions of Western Europe. (The ibex has been identified, for example, in the prehistoric wall paintings of Lascaux). The ibex owes its survival to the Gran Paradiso National Park in Italy, and, in France, to the Vanoise, a national park on the Italian border. In 1960, the last ibexes of the French Alps, a group numbering approximately sixty, were discovered in the Maurienne, above Modane and Termignon.
Today, they number approximately 2,000. This increased population in the Vanoise National Park has permitted the reintroduction of the ibex in other Alpine massifs.
|
